UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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LIBRARY 


WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE  OUR  FORM 
OF  GOVERNMENT? 

STUDIES  IN  PRACTICAL  POLITICS 


BY  THE   SAME  AUTHOR 


The  Effect  of  the  War  of  1812  Upon  the  Consolidation 
of  the  Union — Johns  Hopkins  University  Press, 
1887—30  pp. 

True  and  False  Democracy— Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 
1915  (First  Edition,  The  Macmill^  Co.,  1007) 
— xii+m  pp. 

The  American  as  He  Is — Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1915 
(First  Edition,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  1908) — x  + 
97  PP- 

Philosophy — Columbia  University  Press,  1911 — vii  + 

51  pp. 

Why  Should  We  Change  Our  Form  of  Govern- 
ment ? — Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1912 — xv  + 
'59  PP- 

The  International  Mind — Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
1913 — x  +  121  pp. 

The  Meaning  of  Education — Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 
1915 — xiii  +•  385  pp. 

A  World  in  Ferment — Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 
1918 — viii  +  254  pp. 


WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 
OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT? 

STUDIES  IN  PRACTICAL  POLITICS 


BY 

NICHOLAS   MURRAY   J3UTLER 

PRESIDENT  OF  COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 
MEMBER  Or  THE  AMERICAN  ACADEMY  Or  ARTS  AND  LETTERS 


NEW  YORK. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  March  1912, 


a 


k 

•? 


TO  THE   MEMORY  OF 
MY    FATHER    AND    MOTHER 

GENTLEFOLK  OF  THE  OLD   SCHOOL 
WHO   TAUGHT  THEIR   SONS   TO   CARE   FOR   PUBLIC 

AFFAIRS   AND  TO   FOLLOW 
HIGH  STANDARDS  IN  DOING  SO 


PREFACE 

WHY  is  it  that  in  the  United  States  the  words 
politics  and  politician  have  associations  that 
are  chiefly  of  evil  omen?  Why  is  it  that  in  the 
United  States  the  phrase,  to  play  politics,  means 
to  cajole  the  mob  or  to  descend  to  practices  of 
doubtful  honor?  In  the  true  and  broad  sense 
of  the  word,  politics  is  one  of  man's  highest 
concerns,  and  nowhere  should  the  word  have 
loftier  and  nobler  associations  than  in  a 
twentieth  century  democracy.  The  fact  that 
this  is  not  the  case  indicates  the  measure  of 
our  failure,  as  yet,  to  place  our  public  life 
and  our  governmental  administration  upon  the 
plane  where  they  ought  to  be. 

There  is  a  singular  and  discouraging  discrep- 
ancy between  the  political  expositions  and  dis- 
cussions of  a  century  ago  and  those  of  today. 
In  the  Federalist  and  in  Calhoun's  Disquisi- 
tion on  Government,  we  have  perhaps  the  two 
most  profound  and  original  contributions  to 


viii  PREFACE 

political  science  that  have  been  made  since 
Aristotle.  Even  when  the  controversy  over 
slavery  was  at  its  height  and  men's  passions 
were  fiercely  roused,  there  was  a  distinction  in 
the  public  debates  and  discussions,  both  in  the 
Senate  and  on  the  platform,  that  is  now  sadly 
lacking.  The  people  of  the  whole  country  hung 
with  breathless  interest  upon  the  great  debate 
between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  and  its  published 
record  remains  to-day,  after  the  controversy 
which  caused  it  has  been  closed  forever,  a  politi- 
cal classic  of  first-rate  importance.  We  have 
no  such  debates  on  the  pending  proposals  to 
overturn  our  form  of  government  and  on  the 
principles  of  that  political  philosophy  which 
calls  itself  socialism.  Surely  these  questions 
are  of  vital  interest  and  of  fundamental  im- 
portance. The  reason  may  be  that  we  are  just 
now  without  either  a  Lincoln  or  a  Douglas,  but 
the  question  remains — why  do  not  the  condi- 
tions under  which  we  are  now  living  produce 
political  leaders  and  guides  of  philosophic  mind, 
of  broad  scholarship,  and  of  unselfish  patriot- 
ism? Why  are  we  condemned  to  the  mediocre 
and  the  second-rate,  and  to  waste  our  time  in 
reading  the  outgivings  of  those  whose  only 


PREFACE  ix 

claim  to  eminence  is  the  magnitude  of  their 
thirst  for  office?  It  would  be  well  for  the 
American  people  to  find  answers  to  questions 
like  these. 

One  may  be  forgiven  for  suspecting  the  fact 
to  be  that  our  politics  has  become  sadly  com- 
mercialized. There  is  no  real  support  for  a 
policy  of  governmental  frugality  and  economy, 
because  a  large  proportion  of  the  population  is 
trying  to  get  the  government  to  spend  some 
part  of  its  money  taken  in  taxes  upon  them, 
upon  their  own  localities,  or  upon  their  special 
interests.  When  enough  of  these  local,  particu- 
lar, and  special  interests  combine  their  forces, 
they  easily  outweigh  the  influence  of  those  who 
would  act  for  the  public  interest  atone.  It  is 
this  fact,  more  than  anything  else,  that  has 
given  strength  and  support  to  the  movement, 
now  wide-spread  in  the  United  States,  in  favor 
of  socialism  or  of  what  may  perhaps  be  called 
semi-socialism.  Everywhere  individuals  and 
communities  are  leaning  upon  government,  and 
the  sense  of  manly  independence  is  being  sup- 
planted by  a  desire  to  be  taken  care  of.  Many 
of  the  philanthropic  schemes  so  eagerly  urged 
upon  the  governments  of  the  nation  and  of  the 


x  PREFACE 

states  are  unsound  both  in  logic  and  in  ethics, 
but  they  are  urged  with  all  the  force  and  enthu- 
siasm which  unreflecting  sentimentality  brings 
to  the  advocacy  of  any  cause  in  which  it  is  for 
the  moment  interested. 

The  distinction  between  the  realm  of  govern- 
ment and  the  realm  of  individual  liberty  lies  at 
the  basis  of  free  institutions  that  are  to  last. 
If  the  realm  of  government  be  so  extended 
as  to  wipe  out  entirely  the  realm  of  indi- 
vidual liberty,  the  result  can  only  be  stagna- 
tion, paralysis,  and  death.  If  the  realm  of 
individual  liberty  be  so  extended  as  to  re- 
duce to  nothing  the  realm  of  government,  the 
result  can  only  be  disorder,  anarchy,  and  the 
eventual  rule  of  brute  force.  The  history  of 
civilization  indicates  with  convincing  clearness 
that  men  should  be  jealous  of  every  extension 
of  the  realm  of  government  into  the  realm 
of  individual  liberty.  The  preservation  of  the 
civil  liberty  of  the  individual  is  the  corner-stone 
upon  which  our  American  constitutional  system 
has  been  built.  Under  the  guise  of  extending 
the  scope  of  the  police  power,  enthusiasts, 
humanitarians,  and  fanatics  of  every  type  are 
constantly  invading  the  realm  of  individual 


PREFACE  xi 

liberty  and  are  urging  yet  other  invasions  of  it. 
The  curious  notion  seems  wide-spread  that  there 
exists  somewhere  and  somehow  an  all-wise  and 
beneficent  State  or  People — something  different 
and  apart  from  individual  human  beings  and 
not  subject  to  their  limitations  and  defects — 
which  all-wise  and  beneficent  State  or  People 
will  take  care  of  us  better  than  we  can  care  for 
ourselves,  if  only  we  will  give  it  the  oppor- 
tunity. That  this  is  crude  nonsense,  contra- 
dicted by  history  and  flaunted  by  common 
sense,  does  not  prevent  its  present  popularity. 
Until  we  turn  our  back  upon  this  delusion  and 
others  like  it,  and  plant  ourselves  firmly  upon 
the  principle  that  human  progress  can  only  be 
gained  and  maintained  by  each  individual  rais- 
ing his  own  standard  of  intelligence  and  of 
conduct,  we  shall  be  floundering  helplessly  in  a 
morass  and  doing  countless  damage  to  the  cause 
of  representative  government  and  to  individual 
liberty. 

Unfortunately,  there  is  in  the  air  just  now  a 
notion  that  all  past  history  and  past  experience 
go  for  nothing,  that  no  principles  are  really  fixed 
and  established,  that  everything  is  in  a  state  of 
transition  and  change,  and  that  no  policy  is  a 


xii  PREFACE 

wise  policy  except  that  of  a  hand-to-mouth 
opportunism.  In  other  words,  it  is  supposed 
that  the  tree  of  individual  and  social  life  can 
grow  by  constantly  putting  forth  new  leaves 
but  without  having  any  roots.  The  only  result 
of  this  doctrine  can  be  to  substitute  appetite 
for  reason  in  guiding  public  affairs.  Heracli- 
tus  would  doubtless  be  complimented  at  this 
adumbration  of  his  view  of  the  universe,  but  at 
the  same  time  he  would  be  both  amused  and 
amazed  at  its  failure  to  realize  what  change 
means  and  involves. 

These  addresses,  delivered  on  different  occa- 
sions during  the  past  few  years,  deal  with  sub- 
jects of  present  interest,  but  in  a  spirit  and  from 
a  standpoint  utterly  antagonistic  to  those  which 
have  just  been  described.  They  are  based  upon 
a  profound  conviction  that  human  history 
and  human  experience  have  taught  and  are 
teaching  lessons  of  permanent  significance  and 
value;  that  human  society  is  not  and  can  never 
be  anything  more  than  the  sum  total  of  the 
individuals  who  compose  it,  and  that  it  has  and 
can  have  no  excellences  of  its  own  which  are  not 
their  excellences;  that  the  civil  liberty  of  the 
individual  is  at  all  hazards  to  be  protected  by 


PREFACE  xiii 

fundamental  law  against  the  attacks  and  in- 
vasions of  temporary  majorities,  whatever  may 
be  the  speciousness  or  the  power  of  the  cause 
which  they  advocate;  that  the  representative 
republic  erected  on  the  American  Continent 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is 
a  more  advanced,  a  more  just,  and  a  wiser  form 
of  government  than  the  socialistic  and  direct 
democracy  which  it  is  now  proposed  to  sub- 
stitute for  it;  that  the  independent  judiciary, 
throwing  the  protection  of  fundamental  law 
about  the  humblest  individual  and  holding 
both  legislatures  and  administrative  officers 
to  the  strict  observance  of  their  constitutional 
limitations,  is  the  chief  glory  of  our  American 
system  of  government  and  its  most  original 
contribution  to  political  science;  that  the  true 
path  of  progress  is  to  be  found  in  meeting  hu- 
man needs,  relieving  human  suffering,  bettering 
human  conditions,  and  enlarging  human  op- 
portunity under  the  protection  of  our  represen- 
tative institutions  and  through  their  agency; 
and  that  social,  political,  and  individual  ad- 
vance are  more  certain  and  more  beneficent  if 
so  undertaken  than  in  any  other  way  yet  de- 
vised by  man. 


xiv  PREFACE 

To  my  long-time  friend  and  colleague,  Pro- 
fessor Brander  Matthews,  I  am  placed  under 
new  obligations  through  his  kindness  in  con- 
senting to  read  the  proofs  of  this  book. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY, 
February  8, 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I     WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE  OUR  FORM 

OF  GOVERNMENT  ? i 

II     BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 51 

III  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 75 

IV  THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP     ....  93 
V     ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 115 

VI     THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT  ....  137 

INDEX 151 


An  address  before  the  Commercial  Club  of 
St.  Louis,  Missouri,  November  27, 1911 


WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE  OUR  FORM 
OF  GOVERNMENT? 

I  have  selected  this  subject  because  it  is  my 
strong  belief  that  the  question  which  I  venture 
to  put  is  one  which  every  intelligent  American 
ought  to  be  asking  himself  at  this  time:  Why 
should  we  change  our  form  of  government? 

We  have  been  reminded  of  late  that  it  is  a 
full  half  century  since  the  beginning  of  that 
outbreak  which  threatened  the  existence  of  our 
nation  as  it  had  been  built  by  the  fathers.  As 
we  look  back  now,  at  least  those  of  us  who  are 
too  young  to  have  participated  in  that  mighty 
struggle,  who  are  too  young  to  have  known  of 
it  save  by  hearsay,  we  can  see  and  understand 
that  the  American  Civil  War  was  an  attack 
made  upon  the  government  of  the  United  States 
by  strong  and  determined  men  animated  by 
what  they  seriously  believed  to  be  sound  prin- 
ciple and  deep  conviction.  They  made  their 
appeal  to  the  supreme  tribunal  of  physical 
force,  and  they  lost  their  cause.  Today  every 

3 


4  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

American  is  glad  that  that  cause,  however 
splendid,  was  lost,  and  that  the  government 
founded  by  the  fathers  was  perpetuated,  let  us 
hope  for  all  time. 

But  now  in  the  short  interval  of  a  generation 
since  that  great  struggle  closed,  there  is  under 
way  a  persistent,  determined,  and  highly  intel- 
ligent attempt  to  change  our  form  of  govern- 
ment. This  attempt  is  making  while  we  are 
speaking  about  it.  It  presents  itself  in  many 
persuasive  and  seductive  forms.  It  uses  at- 
tractive formulas  to  which  men  like  to  give  ad- 
hesion; but  if  it  is  successful,  it  will  bring  to  an 
end  the  form  of  government  that  was  founded 
when  our  Constitution  was  made  and  that  we 
and  our  fathers  and  our  grandfathers  have 
known  and  gloried  in. 

To  put  the  matter  bluntly,  there  is  under 
way  in  the  United  States  at  the  present  time  a 
definite  and  determined  movement  to  change 
our  representative  republic  into  a  socialistic 
democracy.  That  attempt,  carried  on  by  men 
of  conviction,  men  of  sincerity,  men  of  honest 
purpose,  men  of  patriotism,  as  they  conceive 
patriotism,  is  the  most  impressive  political 
factor  in  our  public  life  of  today.  In  my  judg- 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?  5 

ment  it  transcends  all  possible  differences  be- 
tween the  historic  parties;  it  takes  precedence 
of  all  problems  of  a  business,  a  financial,  or  an 
economic  character,  however  pressing:  for  it 
strikes  at  the  very  root  of  the  government  of 
the  United  States  and  at  the  principles  upon 
which  that  government  rests.  It  strikes  at  the 
very  root  of  the  institutions  that  we  call  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  it  proclaims  a  failure  that  great 
movement  for  the  establishment  of  liberty  un- 
der law,  controlled  and  carried  on  through  the 
institutions  of  representative  government,  a 
movement  which  had  its  origin  more  than  two 
thousand  years  ago  in  the  forests  of  Germany, 
and  which  has  persisted  with  constantly  grow- 
ing force  and  power  throughout  the  history  of 
the  English-speaking  peoples  down  to  our  own 
day.  We  are  now  told  that  representative 
government  has  failed.  We  are  now  told  that 
the  people  are  either  incompetent  or  unable 
to  choose  representatives  who  will  really  serve 
their  highest  interests,  and  who  will  be  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  temptation  offered  by  money, 
or  by  power,  or  by  place.  The  remedy  is  said 
to  be  to  appeal  over  the  heads  of  the  people's 
chosen  representatives  to  the  people  themselves. 


6  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

Look  for  a  moment  at  this  proposal  and  try 
to  understand  what  it  means.  When  Madison 
made  his  contributions  to  the  Federalist,  he 
wrote  in  one  place:  "In  a  democracy  the  peo- 
ple meet  and  exercise  the  government  in  per- 
son; in  a  Republic  they  assemble  and  admin- 
ister it  by  their  representatives  and  agents." 
A  little  later  on  he  wrote:  "A  Republic  is  a 
government  which  derives  all  its  powers  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  from  the  great  body  of  the 
people,  and  is  administered  by  persons  holding 
their  offices  during  pleasure,  for  a  limited  pe- 
riod, or  during  good  behavior."  It  is  clear, 
therefore,  even  if  these  passages  from  Madison 
were  the  only  evidence,  that  the  founders  of 
our  government  knew  and  had  studied  the  dif- 
ference between  a  representative  republic  and 
a  direct  democracy. 

I  suppose  that  never  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  before  or  since,  has  there  been  displayed 
so  much  insight  into  the  principles  of  govern- 
ment, so  much  knowledge  of  the  theory  and 
practical  workings  of  the  different  forms  of  gov- 
ernment, as  that  which  accompanied  the  for- 
mulation and  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  Truly,  there  were  giants  in 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?  7 

those  days;  and  whether  we  take  one  view  of 
the  meaning  of  that  great  document  or  another 
makes  no  difference.  The  making  of  the  Amer- 
ican Constitution  was  a  stupendous  achieve- 
ment of  men  who  through  reading,  through  re- 
flection, through  insight,  and  through  practical 
experience,  had  fully  grasped  the  significance  of 
the  huge  task  to  which  they  devoted  them- 
selves, and  who  accomplished  that  task  in  a 
way  that  has  excited  the  admiration  of  the  civ- 
ilized world.  Those  men  built  a  representative 
republic;  they  knew  the  history  of  other  forms 
of  government;  they  knew  what  had  happened 
in  Greece,  in  Rome,  in  Venice,  and  in  Florence; 
they  knew  what  had  happened  in  the  making 
of  the  modern  nations  that  occupied  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe.  Knowing  all  this,  they  de- 
liberately, after  the  most  elaborate  debate  and 
discussion  both  of  principles  and  details,  pro- 
duced the  result  with  which  we  are  so  familiar. 

Let  us  not  suppose,  however,  even  for  a  mo- 
ment that  that  great  enterprise  had  no  genesis, 
no  history. 

When  half-civilized  man  began  to  take  ac- 
count of  his  public  concerns,  he  was  controlled 
by  a  single  leader,  military  in  character  and  in 


8  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

method.  That  leader  was  at  once  executive, 
law-maker  and  judge.  You  may  read  today, 
if  you  will,  in  some  of  the  great  museums  of 
the  world,  the  laws  of  ancient  oriental  peoples 
carved  on  stone,  and  bearing  the  name  of 
the  monarch  who  enacted  them  by  his  mere 
edict.  You  may,  if  you  choose,  review  the  en- 
tire history  of  the  early  European  forms  of  gov- 
ernment, and  take  note  how  the  emphasis  is 
laid  now  upon  one  element  of  public  life,  now 
upon  another.  At  one  moment  it  was  the  leg- 
islature which  was  exalted,  at  another  it  was 
the  executive,  at  still  another  it  was  the  mil- 
itary leader.  You  may  see,  if  you  will,  the 
building  up  of  a  great  world-empire  under  the 
leadership  of  Rome;  you  may  watch  the  break- 
down of  that  empire,  due  to  forces  working  in 
part  from  within  and  in  part  from  without; 
you  may  see  one  form  after  another  of  absolu- 
tism grasping  the  reins  of  government  over  in- 
telligent peoples,  longing  for  a  chance  to  de- 
velop trade  and  commerce;  and  if  you  can 
visualize  the  map  of  Europe  while  all  this  is 
going  on,  you  will  see  on  it  two  bright  partic- 
ular shining  spots.  The  one  spot  is  little  Hol- 
land, and  the  other  is  England.  Those  two 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?          9 

bright  spots  mark  the  places  where  the  prin- 
ciples of  representative  government,  based  upon 
the  intelligent  action  of  a  free  people,  were  at 
work,  and  they  are  the  two  sources  from  which 
our  modern  world  has  learned  all  its  great  les- 
sons of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  It  was  Hol- 
land which  provided  a  resting  place  for  the 
strong  men  who  were  soon  to  find  their  way 
across  the  Atlantic  to  the  shores  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay.  It  was  England  which  had  devel- 
oped parliamentary,  representative  institutions 
to  the  greatest  perfection.  From  England  we 
learned  these  lessons,  and  they  have  grown  long 
and  deeply  into  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
American  people.  In  our  great  federal  repub- 
lic these  lessons  have  been  applied,  and  the 
principle  of  representative  institutions  has  been 
worked  out,  on  a  scale  and  with  a  magnitude 
that  are  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  polit- 
ical action. 

The  governmental  changes  which  are  now 
proposed  to  the  American  people  are  not 
brought  forward  as  philosophic  propositions  to 
be  examined  and  passed  upon  in  principle; 
they  are  not  brought  forward  as  a  complete  and 
conscious  program  to  be  debated  and  discussed, 


io  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

to  be  compared  with  the  results  of  the  experi- 
ence and  the  activities  of  the  past  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  years.  These  changes  are  pre- 
sented to  us  as  specific  proposals  to  be  passed 
upon  now  here,  now  there,  in  the  light  not  of 
principle  but  of  temporary  expediency.  In  the 
name  of  reform  or  of  progress  we  are  asked  to 
give  our  assent  now  to  this  specific  proposal, 
now  to  that.  But,  these  specific  proposals, 
when  taken  altogether,  when  regarded  collec- 
tively, constitute  an  invitation  to  surrender  our 
representative  republic  and  to  build  upon  the 
place  where  it  once  stood  the  structure  of  a  so- 
cialistic democracy. 

It  may  be,  perhaps,  that  a  social  democracy 
is  a  better  form  of  government  than  the  repre- 
sentative republic  which  we  now  have.  It  may 
be,  perhaps,  that  under  the  institutions  of  a  so- 
cialistic democracy  mankind  would  be  happier, 
opportunity  more  free,  property  more  equally 
distributed,  and  the  satisfaction  of  man's  wants 
more  easily  accomplished  than  now.  All  these 
things  may  be;  but  if  a  socialistic  democracy 
is  to  be  substituted  for  a  representative  re- 
public, do  not  overlook  the  fact  that  it  can 
be  so  substituted  only  by  revolution.  There 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        n 

must  first  be  a  revolution  in  our  fundamental 
political  beliefs;  there  must  first  be  a  revolu- 
tion in  our  accustomed  forms  of  political  action; 
there  must  first  be  a  revolution  in  our  point  of 
view,  in  our  ambitions,  and  in  our  aspirations. 
What  are  the  charges  that  these  revolution- 
ists bring  against  the  representative  republic? 
We  are  told  in  the  first  place  that  the  repre- 
sentative republic  fails  really  and  readily  to  re- 
flect public  opinion;  that  these  representative 
institutions  easily  become  the  prey  of  the  self- 
seeker,  of  the  special  interest,  of  the  wire-puller, 
of  the  schemer,  of  the  man  who  would  use 
the  public  for  his  own  personal  advancement  or 
enrichment;  and  that,  therefore,  they  must  be 
uprooted,  overturned  and  destroyed.  We  are 
told,  in  other  words,  that  after  not  only  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  years  of  our  own  ex- 
perience, but  after  five  hundred  years  of  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  these  rep- 
resentative institutions  have  failed,  and  that 
in  the  name  of  progress  we  must  pass  on  to  a 
direct  democracy.  We  are  told  that  we  should 
begin  by  so  shackling  representative  institu- 
tions that  they  must  respond  at  once,  mechan- 
ically and  with  precision,  to  the  expressed  wish 


12  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

or  the  expressed  emotions  of  a  majority  of  the 
voting  population  at  any  given  instant,  regard- 
less of  the  fundamental  constitutional  guaran- 
tees of  civil  and  political  liberty.  We  are  told 
that  if  we  do  this  we  shall  restore  government 
to  a  purely  democratic  form,  that  we  shall 
make  it  responsive  to  the  public  will  and  to 
public  opinion,  and  that  every  legitimate  pub- 
lic and  private  interest  will  thereby  be  pro- 
moted. Surely  this  is  an  ambitious  and  a 
tempting  program. 

Before  we  give  our  assent  to  it,  however,  let 
us  examine  for  a  moment  the  point  of  view  and 
the  contentions  of  those  who  are  the  mouth- 
pieces of  this  revolutionary  movement.  We 
are  justified  in  asking  in  the  first  place  whether 
the  attempt  to  substitute  a  direct  democracy 
for  a  representative  republic  is  progressive  or 
reactionary.  It  is  the  history  of  all  evolution- 
ary processes  that  for  particular  purposes  spe- 
cial organs  are  developed;  for  particular  ac- 
tivities special  instrumentalities  are  produced; 
and  in  developing  any  truly  forward  movement 
we  proceed  from  the  simple  to  the  complex. 
In  organic  evolution  the  process  is  one  away 
from  the  gelatinous  and  formless  mass  of  the 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        13 

lower  organisms  to  the  exceedingly  complex 
structure  of  the  higher  mammals.  Obviously, 
then,  it  is  an  earlier  stage  of  evolution  when  one 
organism  or  instrumentality  performs  all  func- 
tions, when  one  organism  or  instrumentality 
carries  on  government  in  all  its  forms,  as  well 
as  those  economic  activities  which  result  in  pro- 
viding clothing,  shelter  and  food.  As  we  de- 
velop, however,  and  as  we  progress,  we  differ- 
entiate; we  throw  out  feelers,  as  it  were;  we 
evolve  special  organisms  and  instrumentali- 
ties, social  as  well  as  individual;  and  these  di- 
vide among  themselves  the  economic,  industrial 
and  the  governmental  functions  of  the  social 
unit.  In  this  way  we  get  a  division  of  labor; 
in  this  way  we  get  a  specialization  of  func- 
tion. A  really  progressive  movement,  therefore, 
is  a  movement  toward  differentiation,  toward 
complexity,  toward  specialization  of  structure 
and  function.  The  movement  towards  the  per- 
fecting of  representative  government  is  progres- 
sive; a  movement  away  from  representative 
government,  a  movement  that  would  shackle 
and  limit  it,  and  that  would  appeal  from  rep- 
resentative institutions  to  direct  democracy,  is 
reactionary. 


I4  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

It  may  be  said  of  the  amoeba  that  it  walks 
on  its  stomach  and  digests  with  its  legs,  be- 
cause it  digests  with  what  it  walks  with,  and  it 
walks  with  what  it  digests  with.  As  yet  there 
has  been  no  differentiation  of  structure  or  of 
function.  But  the  amoeba  with  its  very  simple 
structure  is  certainly  not  in  advance  of  the 
mammal  with  its  highly  organized  structure,  its 
differentiation  of  function,  and  its  many  com- 
plicated activities.  The  movement  to  substi- 
tute direct  democracy  for  representative  gov- 
ernment is  a  movement  back  from  the  age  of 
the  mammal  to  the  age  of  the  amoeba.  Such 
a  movement  may  have  merits  of  its  own,  but 
they  cannot  be  the  merits  which  we  attach 
to  genuine  progress.  It  would  be  just  as 
appropriate  to  organize  a  movement,  in  the 
name  of  a  progressive  democracy,  to  cut  our 
own  clothes  and  to  make  our  own  shoes,  when 
tailors  and  shoemakers  are  unsatisfactory,  as 
to  assume  for  the  people  as  a  whole  the  po-' 
litical  duties  which  belong  to  representative 
bodies  of  officials,  because  these  do  not  in 
every  case  do  just  what  we  should  like.  To 
take  a  backward  step  from  specialization  of 
structure  and  of  function,  must  not  be  de- 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?         15 

fended  as  progressive;  it  is  as  reactionary  as 
anything  in  the  whole  field  of  social  evolu- 
tion can  possibly  be.  It  is  to  return  from  the 
age  of  the  mammal  to  the  age  of  the  amoeba. 
Of  course  it  is  conceivable  that  such  a  move- 
ment backward  is  desirable,  but,  if  so,  let  us  at 
least  call  it  by  its  right  name. 

We  began  in  this  country  to  break  down  the 
safeguards  and  to  weaken  the  fundamental 
principles  of  representative  institutions  some 
years  ago,  and  in  two  different  ways.  We 
began  to  break  them  down  when  in  many  of 
our  state  constitutions,  indeed  in  nearly  all  of 
them,  we  departed  from  the  sound  principles 
of  constitution-making,  and  filled  these  impor- 
tant documents  full  of  what  really  should  have 
been  statutory  legislation. 

The  strength  and  vitality  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  are  found  in  the  fact  that 
it  expresses  in  a  few  words  general  principles 
which  are  susceptible  of  interpretation  and  of 
adaptation  to  different  needs  and  conditions. 
It  is  for  this  reason,  and  for  this  reason  alone, 
that  the  Constitution  has  been  maintained  and 
sustained,  substantially  without  change  so  far 
as  governmental  structure  is  concerned,  for  a 


16  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

century  and  a  quarter  of  most  unexpected  and 
unimagined  developments.  A  written  consti- 
tution is  a  device  to  protect  man's  sober  and 
mature  political  judgment  from  his  fleeting  po- 
litical passions  and  prejudices.  The  moment 
that  you  write  into  fundamental  law  a  definite 
and  precise  statement  of  momentary  political 
feeling  in  regard  to  some  matter  of  govern- 
mental detail,  that  moment  you  have  broken 
down  the  distinction  which  should  exist  be- 
tween a  constitution  and  a  statute.  A  consti- 
tution should  contain  only  those  guarantees  of 
civil  and  political  liberty  which  underlie  our 
whole  organized  society;  and  it  should  also  make 
carefully  drawn  grants  of  power  to  legislative, 
executive  and  judicial  officers,  together  with 
those  major  political  determinations  that  per- 
sist, and  are  persisted  in,  through  changes  of 
party  and  of  political  creed.  Of  course,  no  con- 
stitution is  permanent  and  unamendable,  for 
even  fundamental  principles  take  on  new  as- 
pects with  changes  of  circumstance.  Neverthe- 
less, if  our  American  government  is  to  endure, 
we  must  acknowledge  and  maintain  the  broad 
distinction  which  exists  between  the  making  of 
a  constitution  and  the  enactment  of  a  statute. 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?         17 

*  In  many  of  our  states,  particularly  in  those 
which  have  been  organized  in  recent  years,  the 
so-called  constitutions  are  an  odd  and  curious 
medley  of  genuine  constitutional  principles  and 
a  host  of  statutes.  It  is  not  proper  to  include 
in  a  state  constitution  provision  for  the  spe- 
cific location  of  a  state  university;  it  is  not 
proper  to  include  in  a  state  constitution  the 
amount  of  compensation  to  be  paid  annually 
to  the  state  auditor;  it  is  not  proper  to  in- 
clude in  a  state  constitution  any  one  of  the 
hundreds  of  merely  incidental  details  of  gov- 
ernment that  it  is  now  fashionable  to  put  upon 
the  same  plane  with  vitally  important  expres- 
sions of  fundamental  political  principle. 

The  results  of  this  confusion  between  a  con- 
stitution and  a  statute  are  most  unhappy.  If, 
for  example,  it  is  desired  to  change  the  loca- 
tion of  a  state  university,  or  to  increase  the 
salary  of  the  state  auditor,  the  constitution 
must  be  amended.  If  it  can  be  so  easily 
amended  in  one  particular,  why  not  in  all 
others?  At  that  moment  the  fundamental 
political  guarantees  have  lost  their  sacred- 
ness  and  are  reduced  to  the  same  plane  of 
mere  expediency  as  the  location  of  the  state 


i8  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

university,  and  the  amount  of  the  auditor's 
salary. 

We  departed  and  we  departed  widely  and  far 
in  this  country  from  the  sound  principles  of  con- 
stitution making  when,  at  first  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  movement  of  1848  in  Europe,  and 
later  under  the  influence  of  the  various  com- 
promises and  personal  ambitions  which  entered 
into  the  making  of  some  of  the  newer  states, 
we  began  to  turn  the  fundamental  law  of  our 
various  commonwealths  into  a  huge  collection 
of  statutory  details.  In  so  doing  we  have  con- 
fused the  public  understanding  of  what  a  con- 
stitution really  is,  and  we  have  opened  the  door 
to  every  form  of  experimentation  with  our  fun- 
damental principles  on  the  same  basis  as  per- 
fectly proper  experimentation  with  the  merest 
details  of  our  whole  legislative  and  political 
activity. 

Then  in  the  second  place,  we  began  the  de- 
struction of  the  fundamental  principles  of  rep- 
resentative government  in  this  country  when, 
under  the  lash  of  party,  we  reduced  the  rep- 
resentative to  the  position  of  a  mere  dele- 
gate; when  we  began,  as  is  now  quite  com- 
monly the  case,  to  instruct  a  representative 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        19 

as  to  what  he  is  to  do  when  elected;  when  we 
began  to  pledge  him  in  advance  of  his  elec- 
tion that,  if  chosen,  he  will  do  certain  things 
and  oppose  others.  In  other  words,  when 
we  reduced  the  representative  from  the  high, 
splendid,  and  dignified  status  of  a  real  repre- 
sentative chosen  by  his  constituency  to  give 
it  his  experience,  his  brains,  his  conscience 
and  his  best  service,  and  made  him  a  mere 
registering  machine  for  the  opinion  of  the  mo- 
ment, whatever  it  might  happen  to  be. 

On  this  point  there  is  a  classic  expression 
which  every  student  of  government  knows  and 
knows  well.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  speech 
made  by  Edmund  Burke  to  the  electors 
of  Bristol,  in  which  he  expresses  in  words 
that  are  never  to  be  forgotten  the  real  duty 
of  a  representative  to  those  who  have  chosen 
him.  Let  me  read  what  Burke  said:  "It 
ought  to  be  the  happiness  and  glory  of  a  rep- 
resentative to  live  in  the  strictest  union,  the 
closest  correspondence,  and  the  most  unre- 
served communication  with  his  constituents. 
Their  wishes  ought  to  have  great  weight  with 
him;  their  opinions  high  respect;  their  busi- 
ness unremitted  attention But  his  un- 


20  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

biased  opinion,  his  mature  judgment,  his  en- 
lightened conscience,  he  ought  not  to  sacrifice 
to  you,  to  any  man,  or  to  any  set  of  men 

living Your    representative    owes   you 

not  his  industry  only,  but  his  judgment;  and 
he  betrays  instead  of  serving  you,  if  he  sacri- 
fices it  to  your  opinion You  choose 

a  member  indeed,  but  when  you  have  chosen 
him,  he  is  not  a  member  of  Bristol,  but  he 
is  a  member  of  Parliament."  We  may  say, 
substantially  in  Burke's  phrase,  that  when  we 
choose  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, he  is  not  a  member  of  the  first  district 
of  New  York,  or  of  Pennsylvania,  or  of  Ohio, 
or  of  Missouri,  but  he  is  a  member  of  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States. 

But  we  are  told  that  this  form  of  democ- 
racy is  not  satisfactory;  it  is  not  possible  with 
these  processes  and  on  these  principles  to  ac- 
complish things  that  some  people  want  to  have 
accomplished.  We  find,  it  is  said,  that  our  rep- 
resentatives are  getting  out  of  our  control; 
they  do  not  do  what  we  tell  them.  Of  course, 
they  come  back  after  two  years  or  four  years 
and  submit  themselves  to  their  constituents  for 
judgment,  but  think  of  the  mischief  they  can  do 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        21 

in  these  two  years  or  these  four  years  which 
cannot  be  undone  speedily,  if  at  all!  There- 
fore, we  are  told  we  must  change  our  form  of 
government  and  put  the  entire  voting  popu- 
lation in  direct  control  of  every  governmental 
process,  3 

It  is  not  necessary  for  those  who  believe  in 
a  representative  republic  to  say  that  it  has  no 
shortcomings.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to 
take  the  position  that  everything  goes  on  in 
a  way  which  is  beyond  criticism.  We  need 
not  do  that.  We  must  look  the  facts  in  the 
face.  We  should  admit  the  limitations  of  our- 
selves and  of  other  human  beings;  we  know 
the  deficiencies  and  defects  that  constantly  pre- 
sent themselves  in  our  governmental  adminis- 
tration, whether  national,  state,  or  municipal. 
But  suppose  we  ask  ourselves  this  question: 
Need  we  destroy  fundamental  principles  in 
order  to  correct  temporary  infelicities?  Need 
we  pull  up  our  institutions  by  the  roots  be- 
cause they  do  not  grow  quite  fast  enough  to 
please  us?  These  are  the  questions  which  the 
American  people  must  answer,  and  which  many 
of  them  are  today  ready  to  answer  by  saying: 
"Let  us  destroy  our  fundamental  principles; 


22  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

let  us  pull  up  our  institutions  by  the  roots,  in 
order  to  see  why  they  do  not  grow  faster." 

The  proposition  to  substitute  a  direct  de- 
mocracy for  a  representative  republic  has  some 
features  that  are  serious,  and  some  that  are 
amusing.  We  are  told,  for  instance,  to  look 
at  the  Town  Meeting,  and  see  what  a  splen- 
did institution  the  Town  Meeting  has  been  in 
New  England.  Imagine  a  Town  Meeting  in 
Chicago!  Imagine  bringing  together  on  the 
third  Tuesday  in  March  in  one  corner  of  the 
prairies  of  Illinois  the  entire  voting  population 
of  Chicago  in  order  to  submit  to  them  the  ques- 
tions which  are  submitted  to  the  Town  Meet- 
ings of  the  sparsely  settled  hill  towns  of  New 
England.  Is  it  not  ridiculous?  Of  course. 
Why  is  it  ridiculous?  Because  it  is  an  en- 
deavor to  apply  a  principle  sound  in  itself 
under  circumstances  where  it  cannot  possibly 
work.  It  is  an  attempt  to  arrive  by  a  purely 
logical  process  at  a  political  rule  of  action 
without  taking  into  account  the  facts  and  con- 
siderations of  a  particular  case.  The  moment 
you  ask  yourself  why  it  is  ridiculous  to  at- 
tempt to  govern  Chicago  by  a  Town  Meeting 
and  find  that  it  is,  that  moment  you  ought 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        23 

to  be  ready  to  understand  why  representative 
institutions  grew  up  among  English  speaking 
peoples  and  why  they  have  continued  to  exist 
to  the  present  day.  But  the  objector  says,  "I 
grant  that  we  cannot  have  a  Town  Meeting 
in  the  case  of  Chicago;  that  must  be  given  up 
as  impracticable;  but  there  is  something  else 
that  we  can  do.  We  can  retain  our  represent- 
ative institutions,  but  so  limit  them  and  so 
shackle  their  operations  that  we  retain  for  our- 
selves the  right  to  initiate  legislation  and  the 
right  to  veto  any  legislation  that  our  repre- 
sentatives may  see  fit  to  pass." 

Examine  for  a  moment  these  suggestions  in 
order  to  see  what  they  really  mean  and  to 
what  they  necessarily  lead.  In  the  first  place, 
please  do  not  overlook  the  exceedingly  impor- 
tant fact  that  all  those  who  are  uniting  to 
urge  upon  us  this  transformation  of  our  form 
of  government  invariably  propose  to  put  these 
instrumentalities  of  a  direct  democracy  into 
operation  upon  the  initiative  of  a  very  small 
fraction  of  the  electorate.  What  a  glorious 
time  it  would  be  for  the  perpetual  disturbers 
of  political  peace!  It  is  proposed,  for  instance, 
that  five  per  cent  or  eight  per  cent  of  the  elect- 


24  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

orate  shall  be  sufficient  to  initiate  legislation 
and  to  demand  a  poll  of  the  people  thereon. 
Legislation  so  initiated  cannot  be  amended  or 
perfected  in  form.  It  cannot  be  examined 
in  committee,  its  sponsors  cannot  be  cross- 
questioned;  it  must  be  taken  or  left  precisely 
as  they  project  it  into  the  political  arena.  Is 
there  any  community  in  the  world  where  five 
per  cent  of  the  adult  males  cannot  be  gotten 
to  sign  a  petition  for  anything?  Is  there  any 
community  in  the  world  where  if  five  per  cent 
of  the  adult  males  had  petitioned  for  some- 
thing that  had  been  denied,  they  could  not  be 
gotten  to  petition  for  it  again  without  delay? 
Would  not  life  under  this  system  become  one 
long  series  of  elections?  Should  we  not  be 
pursuing  each  other  to  the  polls  once  a  week 
to  pass  upon  some  new  legislative  proposal, 
and  not  always  one  presented  by  the  wisest 
and  most  thoughtful  of  our  citizens?  What 
would  be  the  effect  of  all  this  on  public  san- 
ity and  order  and  on  the  members  of  our  legis- 
lative bodies,  national  and  state?  Are  the  best 
men  in  your  community  going  to  accept  nomi- 
nation and  election  to  a  legislative  body  any 
one  of  whose  acts,  however  carefully  formu- 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?         25 

lated,  may  be  brought  up  for  review  and  pos- 
sibly overturned  on  the  initiative  of  five  per 
cent  of  the  voting  population?  We  complain 
that  we  do  not  always  get  the  men  we  would 
most  like  to  see  in  the  state  and  national  legis- 
latures. Should  we  get  a  better  class  of  rep- 
resentatives, or  worse,  if  we  took  away  their 
sense  of  responsibility,  took  away  their  dig- 
nity and  authority,  and  set  ourselves  up  on 
every  side  to  duplicate  or  possibly  to  overturn 
their  every  act?  There  is  only  one  possible 
answer  to  that  question.  We  should  degrade 
our  legislative  bodies  and  reduce  them  to  intel- 
lectual, moral  and  political  impotence. 

Of  all  the  proposals  that  have  been  brought 
forward  in  the  name  of  direct  democracy,  the 
initiative  is  the  most  preposterous  and  the  most 
vicious.  It  is  far  more  objectionable  than  the 
referendum,  which  is  ordinarily  bracketed  with 
it,  because  it  is  intended  to  project  a  legisla- 
tive proposal  upon  the  community  at  the  in- 
stigation of  a  very  small  number  of  persons, 
which  proposal  must  then  be  passed  upon  with- 
out amendment;  without  any  opportunity  to 
perfect  it,  even  in  phraseology;  without  any 
chance  to  receive  and  act  upon  suggestions  for 


26  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

its  extension,  its  narrowing,  or  its  betterment; 
and  without  opportunity  for  any  one  of  the 
processes  of  discussion  and  revision  which  are 
offered  today  under  the  operation  of  the  rules 
of  procedure  which  control  legislative  bodies 
and  their  committees.  Under  the  action  of  the 
initiative,  a  community  is  called  upon  to  say 
yes  or  no  to  a  proposal  framed  by  five  per 
cent  of  anybody.  I  submit  that  this  is  very 
like  having  to  answer  the  question  "Have  you 
left  off  beating  your  grandmother?"  If  you 
answer  "yes>"  vou  embarrass  yourself;  if  you 
answer  "no,"  you  embarrass  yourself  still  more. 
All  that  can  possibly  be  accomplished  by 
the  initiative  is  to  strike  the  heaviest  possible 
blow  at  representative  institutions,  and  to  re- 
move the  last  inducement  to  bring  able,  re- 
flective and  intelligent  men  to  accept  service 
in  a  legislative  body.  The  initiative  will  re- 
sult in  registering  in  more  or  less  rapid  suc- 
cession the  consecutive  emotions  of  a  small 
proportion  of  the  electorate;  because  if  you 
will  examine  the  records  where  the  initiative 
has  been  introduced,  you  will  see  that  what- 
ever action  has  been  taken  has  been  so  taken 
by  the  vote  of  a  small  minority  of  the  voting 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        27 

population.  Consideration  by  chosen  represent- 
atives disappears,  the  perfecting  of  a  measure 
through  committee  consideration  and  public 
debate  is  made  impossible;  some  preconceived 
scheme  for  which  there  is  a  sentiment  among 
a  small  portion  of  the  community  must  be  ac- 
cepted or  rejected  in  toto. 

This  is  not  a  policy  which  makes  for  stable 
and  consistent  government.  This  is  not  a  pro- 
gressive policy.  This  is  not  a  policy  which  will 
develop  and  strengthen  the  institutions  that 
we  have  inherited  and  that  we  are  seeking  to 
apply  to  new  conditions.  This  is  not  a  policy 
which  will  bring  support  to  the  fundamental 
guarantees  of  civil  and  political  liberty  upon 
which  our  national  government  rests. 

But  it  may  be  urged,  surely  those  fundamen- 
tal guarantees  are  not  questioned  or  doubted! 
I  beg  to  assure  you  that  every  single  one  of 
them  is  questioned  and  doubted  in  this  coun- 
try, and  questioned  and  doubted  by  no  in- 
considerable body  of  opinion,  some  of  it  not 
lacking  in  intelligence,  very  energetically  repre- 
sented in  different  parts  of  the  United  States. 
We  may  close  our  eyes  to  all  this  if  we  like. 
We  may  with  our  consummate  American  hope- 
fulness and  optimism  say  that  it  will  turn  out 


28  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

all  right.  Perhaps  it  will;  but  the  fact  remains 
that  there  are  many  of  us  who  believe  that 
the  fundamental  guarantees  which  underlie  our 
whole  national  government  and  our  national 
•  life  cannot  be  attacked,  cannot  be  denied,  can- 
not be  made  light  of,  without  serious  danger 
to  our  entire  political  fabric. 

Should  not  the  majority  rule?  If  the  ma- 
jority wish  to  sweep  away  all  the  fundamental 
guarantees,  should  they  not  be  permitted  to 
do  so?  Is  that  not  one  of  the  risks  that  dem- 
ocratic government  must  run?  Those  who  be- 
lieve that  we  learn  nothing  in  this  world  from 
human  experience,  may,  if  they  choose,  an- 
swer those  questions  in  the  affirmative.  Those 
who  believe  that  nothing  in  this  world  is  fixed, 
or  definite,  or  a  matter  of  principle,  may  an- 
swer those  questions  in  the  affirmative;  but 
those  who  believe  that  we  do  move  forward 
through  the  centuries  by  building  upon  and 
using  the  experience  of  those  who  have  gone 
before;  those  who  believe  that  out  of  the  thou- 
sand or  two  thousand  years  of  political  life 
and  activity  of  the  western  world  there  have 
come  some  principles  which  are  certain  and 
which  abide,  and  some  political  guarantees  that 
are  vital  to  human  welfare,  will  answer  those 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        29 

questions,  No,  a  thousand  times,  No!  Those 
who  believe  that  we  must  build  our  institu- 
tions upon  foundations  that  are  not  subject 
to  continual  revision  and  reconstruction  will 
answer,  No,  a  thousand  times  No!  We  point 
to  the  fundamental  guarantees  of  the  British 
and  American  Constitutions,  and  say  that  those 
are  beyond  the  legitimate  reach  of  any  ma- 
jority, because  they  are  established  in  the  fun- 
damental laws  of  human  nature  upon  which 
all  government  and  civilization  and  progress 
rest.  Sweep  them  away,  if  you  will;  a  major- 
ity may  have  that  power,  but  with  the  power 
does  not  go  the  right.  If  they  are  swept  away, 
all  government  and  all  liberty  go  with  them; 
and  anarchy,  in  which  might  alone  makes  right 
and  power  alone  gives  place,  will  rise  upon 
their  ruins. 

There  is  nothing  new  about  all  this.  Aris- 
totle pointed  out  that  democracy  has  many 
points  of  resemblance  with  tyranny.  It  was 
he  who  first  told  us  how  a  democracy  as  well 
as  a  tyranny  may  become  a  despotism.  It 
was  he  who  first  pointed  out  to  us  the  like- 
ness that  there  is  between  the  demagogue  in  a 
democracy  and  the  court  favorite  in  a  tyranny. 
If  democracy  is  not  to  become  a  tyranny,  it 


30  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

must  recognize  and  build  upon  those  consti- 
tutional limitations  and  guarantees  that  are 
so  precious  to  the  individual  citizen  and  that 
protect  him  in  his  life,  his  liberty  and  his  prop- 
erty. It  is  not  in  the  power  of  any  majority 
to  sweep  these  away  without  sweeping  away 
with  them  the  whole  fabric  of  the  state  in  vio- 
lent and  destructive  revolution.  The  other  day 
in  turning  over  the  pages  of  John  C.  Calhoun, 
I  came  upon  a  most  extraordinary  passage 
which  bears  upon  this  very  point.  Almost  a 
century  ago  Calhoun  showed  clearly  that  the 
government  of  the  uncontrolled  numerical  ma- 
jority is  but  the  absolute  and  despotic  form  of 
popular  government,  just  as  the  uncontrolled 
will  of  one  man  is  monarchy.  Control  there 
must  always  be,  if  there  is  to  be  liberty.  That 
control  is  law,  built  in  turn  upon  those  limita- 
tions and  guarantees  which  are  our  constitu- 
tion. It  is  just  as  easy  for  a  majority  to  be- 
come a  despot  as  for  a  monarch  to  become  a 
tyrant.  Even  a  tyrant  may  be  benevolent;  even 
a  democratic  despotism  may  be  malevolent. 

We  are  now  invited  to  treat  these  consti- 
tutional limitations  and  guarantees  just  as  we 
treat  mere  statutory  legislation.  They  are  to 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        31 

be  revised,  to  be  amended,  to  be  overturned, 
in  order  that  the  sacred  will  of  a  temporary 
majority  may  be  everywhere  and  always  en- 
acted into  constitutional  law.  To  walk  in  these 
paths  means  the  supression  of  the  individual 
as  the  unit  in  the  scheme  of  liberty.  It  means 
the  extinction  of  liberty  as  we  have  known  it. 
It  means  what  I  call  a  socialistic  democracy, 
because  it  means  that  the  majority  will  take 
direct  and  responsible  control  of  your  life,  your 
liberty  and  your  property.  All  that  constitutes 
individuality  will  have  gone  by  the  board;  it 
will  have  been  poured  into  the  great  boiling 
pot  of  the  social  whole,  there  to  be  reduced 
to  a  single  incoherent  mass  to  be  exploited  as 
the  will  of  this  or  that  majority  may  from  mo- 
ment to  moment  determine  and  advise.  This 
may  be  progress,  but  it  is  certainly  revolution. 

There  is  another  device  urged  upon  us  in 
the  name  of  progress,  known  as  the  referen- 
dum. This  differs  widely  from  the  initiative, 
and  has  no  possible  relationship  to  it.  It  is 
in  effect  a  popular  veto  on  the  acts  of  the 
legislature.  Our  American  institutions  provide 
almost  without  exception  for  an  executive  veto. 


32  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

The  executive  veto  exists  for  the  purpose  not 
necessarily  of  permanently  defeating  legislation, 
but  to  compel  its  reconsideration,  its  public 
discussion,  and  its  re-study  by  the  people  them- 
selves, by  the  press,  and  by  the  people's  rep- 
resentatives. It  is  a  wise  and  appropriate  in- 
stitution. Experience  has  shown  that  while 
it  is  not  often  used,  it  may  serve,  and  does 
serve,  as  a  check  upon  hasty  and  ill-considered 
legislative  action. 

The  referendum,  however,  is  quite  different 
from  the  executive  veto;  and,  in  the  form  in 
which  it  is  now  urged,  it  is  like  the  initiative  in 
that  it  tends  to  destroy  the  responsibility  of 
the  legislator  and  to  make  the  legislature  itself 
a  very  subordinate  and  timid  body.  If  any 
community  or  state  insists  upon  subjecting  the 
ordinary  work  of  its  legislature  to  a  general 
referendum,  it  insists  at  the  same  time  that  it 
shall  be  served  in  its  legislature  by  second-rate 
and  third-rate  men,  and  that  its  representatives 
shall  be  turned  into  delegates.  Edmund  Burke 
would  find  no  place  in  such  a  scheme  of  poli- 
tics as  that.  Once  more  I  say,  to  introduce 
the  referendum  as  a  check  upon  the  legisla- 
ture may  be  progress,  but  I  insist  that  if  it  is 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        33 

progress  it  is  also  revolution.  It  is  revolution 
because  it  strips  away  more  and  more  elements 
of  strength,  independence  and  power  from  the 
legislature.  The  legislature  exists  in  order  that 
different  views  may  be  studied  and  compared, 
in  order  that  acts  may  be  considered  and  per- 
fected by  hearing  all  parties  and  all  interests, 
in  order  that  amendment  and  discussion  may 
be  possible.  All  this  is  stripped  away  if  there 
is  behind  each  legislator's  chair  a  controlling 
force  which  says  "If  you  do  so  and  so,  we 
shall  upset  it  by  a  general  vote;  as  we,  your 
creators,  have  a  right  to  do." 

Lord  Acton  in  one  of  his  essays,  I  think  it 
is  the  one  on  the  history  of  liberty,  pointed 
out  some  years  ago  that  the  referendum,  what- 
ever may  be  said  in  its  favor  theoretically,  is 
obnoxious  to  all  believers  in  representative 
institutions,  because  it  contemplates  decision 
without  discussion.  To  be  sure,  there  is  dis- 
cussion in  one  sense,  but  there  is  no  discus- 
sion which  could  in  any  way  operate  to  per- 
fect a  pending  proposal;  there  is  no  discussion 
possible  that  can  lead  to  the  amendment  or 
improvement  of  a  proposal.  The  only  discus- 
sion thar  cap  possibly  take  place  is  that  which 


34  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

will  confirm  men  in  their  attitude  toward  the 
proposition  which  is  pending. 

Of  course,  we  are  in  this  country  accustomed 
to  a  certain  limited  use  of  the  principle  of  ref- 
erendum. State  constitutions  as  a  rule,  and 
state  amendments  almost  uniformly,  are  passed 
upon  by  the  people  as  a  whole.  The  same  is 
true  often  in  the  case  of  large  financial  under- 
takings or  bond  issues.  If  the  legislature  itself 
takes  and  may  take  the  initiative  in  submitting 
a  question  to  a  referendum  vote,  the  damage  is 
in  so  far  limited.  To  force  a  referendum  vote 
upon  the  legislature  by  constitutional  provision 
would  be,  however,  to  inflict  the  maximum 
amount  of  damage  upon  the  representative 
principle.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  legislature 
should  seek  to  shirk  responsibility;  that  is  the 
part  of  weak  and  timid  men.  More  than  half 
a  century  ago,  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  the 
State  of  New  York  in  the  well-known  case 
of  Barto  v.  Himrod  laid  down  the  true  doc- 
trine on  this  subject  in  no  uncertain  terms. 
The  Court  used  this  language:  "The  represent- 
atives of  the  people  are  the  law-makers,  and 
they  are  responsible  to  their  constituents  for 
their  conduct  in  that  capacity.  By  following 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        35 

the  directions  of  the  constitution,  each  mem- 
ber has  an  opportunity  of  proposing  amend- 
ments. The  general  policy  of  the  law,  as  well 
as  the  fitness  of  its  details,  is  open  to  discus- 
sion. The  popular  feeling  is  expressed  through 
their  representatives;  and  the  latter  are  en- 
lightened and  influenced  more  or  less  by  the 
discussions  of  the  public  press. 

"A  complicated  system  can  only  be  per- 
fected by  a  body  composed  of  a  limited  num- 
ber, with  power  to  make  amendments  and  to 
enjoy  the  benefit  of  free  discussion  and  consul- 
tation. This  can  never  be  accomplished  with 
reference  to  such  a  system  when  submitted  to 
a  vote  of  the  people.  They  must  take  the  sys- 
tem proposed  or  nothing.  They  can  adopt  no 
amendments,  however  obvious  may  be  their 

necessity All  the  safeguards  which  the 

constitution  has  provided  are  broken  down,  and 
the  members  of  the  Legislature  are  allowed  to 
evade  the  responsibility  which  belongs  to  their 

office If  this   mode  of  legislation   is 

permitted  and  becomes  general,  it  will  soon 
bring  to  a  close  the  whole  system  of  repre- 
sentative government  which  has  been  so  justly 
our  pride.  The  Legislature  will  become  an 


36  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

irresponsible  cabal,  too  timid  to  assume  the 
responsibility  of  law-givers,  and  with  just  wis- 
dom enough  to  devise  subtle  schemes  of  im- 
posture, to  mislead  the  people.  All  the  checks 
against  improvident  legislation  will  be  swept 
away;  and  the  character  of  the  constitution 
will  be  radically  changed." 

Do  you  fully  realize  with  what  levity  we  are 
now  passing  upon  this  important  issue  of  the 
referendum  in  this  country?  Do  you  realize 
in  what  complexity  important  governmental 
proposals  are  being  submitted  to  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  voters,  and  with 
what  light-hearted  frivolity  they  are  being 
passed  upon?  A  few  weeks  ago,  the  great 
State  of  California,  one  of  the  most  intelligent 
and  wealthiest  states  in  the  Union,  completely 
revolutionized  its  form  of  government  by  pass- 
ing at  one  and  the  same  election  twenty-three 
amendments  to  its  constitution  by  enormous 
majorities.  It  has,  however,  escaped  atten- 
tion, that  the  total  vote  cast  for  and  against 
these  revolutionary  proposals  was  about  sixty 
per  cent  of  the  vote  cast  for  President  in  1908, 
or  of  that  cast  for  Governor  in  1910.  Appar- 
ently the  number  of  people  in  California  who 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        37 

are  interested  in  their  form  of  government  are 
only  about  six-tenths  of  the  number  that  were 
interested  in  who  should  be  President  of  the 
United  States,  or  who  should  be  Governor 
of  the  state.  Of  the  twenty-three  amendments 
that  were  presented  to  the  people  of  California 
on  one  and  the  same  ballot,  some  half-dozen 
were  genuine  constitutional  amendments;  the 
rest  were  almost  without  exception  matters  of 
legislation,  some  of  them  very  unimportant. 

I  beg  that  every  one  who  studies  this  ques- 
tion will  get  and  examine  the  document  that 
was  sent  by  the  Secretary  of  the  State  of  Cal- 
ifornia to  every  registered  voter  in  the  state. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  state  officials  who  got 
up  this  amazing  document  did  not  expect  it 
to  be  read  by  anybody.  It  is  solidly  printed 
in  small  type  on  both  sides  of  one  sheet,  and 
there  is  the  trifling  little  matter  of  a  supple- 
ment with  three  or  four  amendments  on  a  sep- 
arate sheet.  Here  are  printed  the  questions 
that  were  submitted  not  to  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peals of  California,  not  to  the  professors  of 
political  science  in  the  State  University,  not 
even  to  the  legislature  of  the  state,  but  to  the 
voters!  I  submit  that  the  whole  proceeding  is 


38  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

ridiculous.  In  1908,  386,000  voted  for  Presi- 
dent in  California;  in  1910,  385,000  voted  for 
Governor.  The  highest  vote  cast  on  October 
10,  1911,  for  any  of  these  amendments  was  cast 
in  regard  to  the  amendment  relating  to  women's 
suffrage.  The  total  vote  on  that  amendment 
was  246,000;  140,000  fewer  than  were  polled 
three  years  before  for  President,  and  139,000 
fewer  than  were  polled  two  years  before  for 
Governor.  Women's  suffrage  was  carried  in 
California  by  an  affirmative  vote  of  125,000,  or 
2,000  less  than  Mr.  Bryan  received  in  1908 
when  he  lost  the  state  by  nearly  90,000  ma- 
jority. 

Is  it  not  obvious,  then,  that  we  are  chang- 
ing our  form  of  government  in  the  United 
States  by  a  minority  vote?  Here  is  an  amend- 
ment which  doubles  the  number  of  voters  in 
the  state  by  removing  the  limitation  of  sex; 
here  is  action  which  establishes  the  initiative, 
the  referendum,  the  recall,  including  the  re- 
call of  judges;  and  every  one  of  them  is  an 
amendment  to  the  constitution  of  a  great,  rich 
and  populous  state  made  by  a  small  minority 
of  the  voting  population.  That,  I  submit,  is 
a  political  factor  and  a  political  portent  of  far- 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        39 

reaching  significance.  I  know  the  answer.  It 
is  said  that  the  remainder  of  the  voting  popu- 
lation might  have  voted  had  it  wished  to  do 
so.  True;  but  why  then  should  not  this  great 
non-voting  mass  be  counted  in  opposition  to 
revolutionary  changes  in  government  rather 
than  in  favor  of  them,  or  ignored  entirely? 
What  principle  of  political  science  or  of  equity 
is  it  that  puts  the  institutions  of  a  whole  state 
at  the  mercy,  not  even  of  a  temporary  major- 
ity, but  of  a  permanent  minority  of  the  people  ? 
This  election  in  California  wrote  into  the 
constitution  of  the  state  what  is  known  as  the 
recall,  including  the  recall  of  members  of  the 
judiciary.  The  recall  of  executive  and  legis- 
lative officials  is  not  a  violation  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  representative  government 
as  are  the  initiative  and  referendum.  It  gives  a 
place,  however,  to  restless  meddlesomeness,  not 
to  statesmanship.  The  recall  will  assist  the 
initiative  and  the  referendum  in  diminishing 
the  consistency,  the  intelligence,  and  the  dis- 
interestedness of  government,  because  it  will 
help  to  keep  high  minded  and  independent 
men  from  accepting  nomination  and  election 
to  public  office.  It  will  help  to  develop  a  class 


40  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

of  timorous  and  unprincipled  office-seekers  and 
office-holders  who  will  be  able  to  change  what 
they  call  their  principles  as  quickly  as  they 
change  their  clothes,  if  a  few  votes  are  to  be 
gained  thereby. 

The  principle  of  the  recall  when  applied  to 
the  judiciary,  however,  is  much  more  than  a 
piece  of  stupid  folly.  It  is  an  outrage  of  the 
first  magnitude!  It  is  said:  "Are  not  the 
judges  the  servants  of  the  people?  Do  not  the 
people  choose  them  directly  or  indirectly,  and 
should  not  the  people  be  able  to  terminate  their 
service  at  will?"  To  these  questions  I  answer 
flatly,  No!  The  judges  stand  in  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent relation  to  the  people  from  executive 
and  legislative  officials.  The  judges  are  pri- 
marily the  servants  not  of  the  people,  but  of 
the  law.  It  is  their  duty  to  interpret  the  law 
as  it  is,  and  to  hold  the  law-making  bodies 
to  their  constitutional  limitations,  not  to  ex- 
press their  own  personal  opinions  on  matters 
of  public  policy.  It  is  true  that  the  people 
make  the  law,  but  they  do  not  make  it  all  at 
once.  Our  system  of  common  law  has  come 
down  to  us  from  ancient  days,  slowly  broad- 
ening from  precedent  to  precedent.  It  is  not 


a  dead  or  a  fixed  thing.  It  is  capable  of  move- 
ment, of  life,  and  of  adaptation  to  changing 
conditions.  But  it  must  be  changed  and 
adapted  by  reasonable  and  legal  means  and 
methods  and  not  by  shouting  or  by  tumult. 
It  was  no  less  a  person  than  Daniel  Webster 
who  said  "that  our  American  mode  of  gov- 
ernment does  not  draw  any  power  from  tu- 
multuous assemblages."  This  is  true  whether 
the  tumultuous  assemblage  shouts  and  cries 
aloud  on  a  sand  lot,  or  whether  the  tumultu- 
ous assemblage  goes  through  the  form  of  vo- 
ting at  the  polls. 

Moreover,  we  know  something  about  what 
happens  when  judges  are  dependent  upon  the 
power  that  creates  them.  The  history  of  Eng- 
land tells  a  plain  story  of  the  tyranny  and  in- 
justice which  grow  out  of  a  judiciary  that  is 
made  representative  not  of  the  law,  but  of  the 
crown.  In  the  same  way,  if  the  recall  of  the 
judiciary  should  be  established  in  this  country 
it  would  not  be  long  before  our  history  would 
tell  the  story  of  the  tyranny  and  injustice  that 
usually  follow  upon  a  judiciary  made  immedi- 
ately dependent  upon  a  voting  population.  If 
great  causes,  civil  and  criminal,  are  to  be  de- 


42  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

cided  in  accordance  with  established  principles 
of  law  and  equity  and  upon  carefully  tested 
evidence,  they  must  be  decided  under  the 
guidance  of  a  fearless  and  independent  judi- 
ciary. To  make  the  actions  or  the  words  of 
a  judge  the  subject  matter  of  popular  revision 
at  the  polls  with  a  view  to  displacing  a  judi- 
cial officer  because  some  act  or  word  is  not 
at  the  moment  popular,  is  the  most  monstrous 
perversion  of  republican  institutions  and  of  the 
principles  of  true  democracy  that  has  yet  been 
proposed  anywhere  or  by  anybody. 

There  need  be  no  doubt  or  mistake  about 
this,  for  the  advocates  of  the  recall  of  the  ju- 
diciary mince  no  words.  I  find  in  the  Appeal 
to  Reason,  edited  by  Eugene  V.  Debs,  who  is 
hardly  the  safest  and  the  sanest  adviser  that 
the  American  people  have  had,  these  words  in 
relation  to  the  California  election:  "The  fight 
at  the  polls  this  fall  will  center  around  the 
adoption  of  the  initiative,  referendum  and  re- 
call amendments  to  the  constitution.  Under 
the  provisions  of  the  recall  amendment  the 
JUDGES  OF  THE  SUPREME  COURT  OF  CALIFOR- 
NIA CAN  BE  RETIRED.  These  are  men  who 
will  decide  the  fate  of  the  kidnapped  workers! 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        43 

Don't  you  see  what  it  means,  comrades,  to 
have  in  the  hands  of  an  intelligent,  militant 
working  class  the  political  power  to  recall  the 
present  capitalist  judges  and  put  on  the  bench 
our  own  men?  Was  there  ever  such  an  op- 
portunity for  effective  work?  No,  not  since 
Socialism  first  raised  its  crimson  banner  on  the 
shores  of  Morgan's  country!  The  election  for 
Governor  and  state  officers  of  California  does 
not  occur  till  1914.  But  with  the  recall  at  our 
command  we  can  put  our  own  men  in  office, 
without  waiting  for  a  regular  election!"  It  will 
be  observed  that  the  courts  of  California  had 
before  them  a  case  about  which  Mr.  Debs  had 
seemingly  made  up  his  mind.  He  had  not 
heard  the  evidence  because  the  case  has  not 
yet  come  to  trial,  but  it  is  perfectly  obvious 
that  he  and  his  friends  were  ready  to  return  a 
verdict.  Moreover,  they  were  ready  to  recall, 
that  is,  to  displace,  before  the  expiry  of  his 
term  any  judge  who  differs  with  them.  Can 
anyone  outside  of  Bedlam  support  a  public 
policy  such  as  this? 

To  make  it  possible  to  displace  public  offi- 
cials before  the  expiry  of  the  term  for  which 
they  are  chosen  is  to  deprive  them  of  indivi- 


44  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

dual  responsibility  and  dignity  and  to  make 
them  mere  tools  of  passing  opinion.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  what  would  have  happened  had 
the  principle  of  the  recall  prevailed  through- 
out American  history.  We  Americans  are  sin- 
gularly liable  to  communicable  political  dis- 
eases, and  one  wave  of  emotion  after  another 
sweeps  over  us  with  amazing  celerity.  George 
Washington  would  have  been  recalled  at  the 
time  of  the  Genet  episode;  James  Madison 
might  have  been  recalled  during  the  agitation 
which  led  to  the  War  of  1812  with  England; 
Abraham  Lincoln  would  almost  certainly  have 
been  recalled  in  the  dark  days  of  1862  and 
1863;  Grover  Cleveland  would  have  been  re- 
called by  overwhelming  vote  in  the  summer 
of  1893  when  he  was  making  his  fight  for  a 
sound  financial  policy  and  system.  Yet,  when 
we  get  far  enough  away  from  the  public  deeds 
of  these  strong  men,  we  see  that  the  particular 
things  which  at  the  time  most  excited  the  ani- 
mosity and  roused  the  passions  of  large  num- 
bers of  people,  were  the  very  things  that  made 
them  immortal  in  American  history.  It  is  not 
because  they  defied  public  opinion  that  they 
were  great;  it  is  because  they  understood  real 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        45 

public  opinion  better  than  did  the  untamed 
passion  of  the  moment.  They  saw  far  more 
clearly  than  did  the  crowd  what  was  really  at 
stake,  and  it  was  their  responsibility  to  reflect, 
to  plan,  and  to  act  so  that  the  honor  and  high- 
est interests  of  the  nation  would  be  preserved. 
Today  these  men  are  with  the  highest  on  the 
list  of  our  American  heroes;  yet  every  one  of 
them  might  have  been  dashed  from  his  high 
place  if  the  passions  of  the  moment  could 
have  gotten  at  them  when  those  passions  were 
at  their  height. 

Neither  is  there  anything  new  about  all  this. 
It  is  a  French  proverb  which  says  "Every- 
thing changes  but  everything  is  always  the 
same."  In  1890  there  was  discovered  the  lost 
work  by  the  philosopher  Aristotle  on  the  Con- 
stitution of  Athens.  The  reading  of  that  work 
tells  us  much  more  than  we  previously  knew 
of  the  working  of  the  Athenian  Constitution. 
We  can  now  see  more  clearly  than  ever  before 
why  it  was  that  Athens  with  all  its  glory  went 
to  pieces.  The  Athenians  not  only  appointed 
their  generals  by  popular  vote,  but  they  voted 
every  month  or  two  as  to  whether  they  would 
recall  them.  They  recalled  Pericles;  they  re- 


46  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

called  Laches;  they  recalled  Thucydides;  they 
recalled  Alcibiades.  A  general  would  be  sent 
out  to  take  a  fort  or  to  reduce  a  city.  He  did 
not  succeed.  As  soon  as  the  news  reached 
home  he  was  recalled.  A  general  was  sent  out 
to  land  an  army  in  Sicily.  Before  he  reached 
there  he  was  recalled.  This  sort  of  thing  has 
all  been  tried.  It  was  tried  at  Athens  to  the 
full,  and  the  Athenian  Democracy  is  now  an 
interesting  and  instructive  memory.  Why  must 
we  Americans  always  be  children  ?  Why  must 
we  always  seek  to  learn  over  again  at  our  own 
cost  the  lessons  of  experience  which  the  world's 
history  is  ready  to  teach  us  for  the  asking? 

Why  should  we  not  be  permitted  to  perfect 
our  form  of  government  instead  of  changing 
it?  Why  should  we  not  move  forward  in  gen- 
uine progress  on  the  lines  of  the  development 
of  the  last  five  hundred  years  ?  Why  must  we 
turn  back  and  begin  all  over  again  to  climb  the 
painful  hill  of  difficulty  which  leads  to  repre- 
sentative government  and  to  liberty?  It  is  to 
me  a  continual  source  of  amazement  that  those 
who  urge  these  revolutionary  changes  upon  us 
do  not  seem  to  know  anything  of  the  recorded 
history  of  government  and  of  human  society. 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        47 

They  do  not  appear  to  know  that  the  instru- 
ments which  they  offer  us  as  new  and  bright 
and  helpful  have  long  since  been  discarded  as 
old  and  rusty  and  outworn.  Let  them  open 
their  minds  and  study  history  before  attempt- 
ing to  guide  the  political  development  of  the 
American  people. 

I  have  no  time  now  to  do  more  than  indi- 
cate where  I  believe  the  path  of  true  political 
progress  for  our  democracy  leads.  It  leads, 
in  my  judgment,  not  to  more  frequent  elec- 
tions but  to  fewer  elections;  it  leads  not  to 
more  elective  officers,  but  to  fewer;  it  leads 
not  to  more  direct  popular  interference  with 
representative  institutions,  but  to  less;  it  leads 
to  a  political  practice  in  which  a  few  impor- 
tant officers  are  chosen  for  relatively  long  terms 
of  service,  given  much  power  and  responsibil- 
ity, and  then  are  held  to  strict  accountability 
therefor;  it  leads  not  to  more  legislation,  but 
to  infinitely  less;  it  leads  to  fixing  public  opin- 
ion on  questions  of  vital  principle,  and  not  to 
dissipating  it  among  a  thousand  matters  of 
petty  administrative  detail;  it  leads  to  those 
acts  and  policies  that  will  increase  the  desire 
and  interest  of  public-spirited  men  to  hold  of- 


48  WHY  SHOULD  WE  CHANGE 

fice,  and  not  drive  them  away  from  it  as  with 
a  scourge. 

I  wish  that  it  might  be  possible  for  us  to 
be  lifted  up  to  a  distant  planet  and  to  look 
down  on  this  earth  of  ours  and  to  witness  its 
history  move  forward  as  in  a  cinematograph, 
so  that  we  might  in  a  few  moments  view  it 
from  its  beginnings  to  our  own  day.  We 
should  see  the  early  civilized  peoples  with 
their  institutions  and  their  magnificent  build- 
ings, ruling  the  plains  of  Iran;  we  should  see 
the  fertile  valley  of  the  Nile  settled  and  built 
up  and  the  mysterious  pyramids  and  sphinxes 
and  temples  rise  like  magic  at  the  edge  of  the 
most  arid  of  deserts;  we  should  see  the  glory 
that  was  Greece,  and  the  grandeur  that  was 
Rome;  we  should  see  the  building  up  of  the 
great  empire  of  Charlemagne;  we  should 
watch  it  fall  to  pieces;  we  should  observe  the 
moving  masses  of  people  from  the  north  and 
east  going  to  the  south  and  west,  and  also 
the  dark  stream  of  Arab  migration  flowing 
along  the  south  shore  of  the  Mediterranean 
and  across  the  narrow  straits  into  Spain;  we 
should  see  the  modern  nations  of  Europe  take 
their  beginning;  we  should  see  the  heavy  hand 


OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT?        49 

of  absolutism  laid  upon  them,  each  and  all;  and 
then  our  eyes  would  be  attracted  by  those  two 
bright  spots  of  which  I  have  already  spoken, 
England  and  Holland.  From  them  would  be 
seen  coming  bright  beams  of  light,  inspiration 
and  guidance,  strong  enough  to  reach  across 
the  Atlantic  and  to  help  the  earliest  Ameri- 
can settlers  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  civil 
government  which  is  ours.  We  should  see  the 
fundamental  principles  of  this  polity  growing 
stronger  and  more  powerful,  adapting  them- 
selves to  varying  needs  and  economic  condi- 
tions, building  up  a  nation  which  stretches  from 
ocean  to  ocean,  and  from  frost  to  continual 
sunshine,  and  which  offers  a  haven  and  a  rest- 
ing place  to  men  of  every  race  and  every 
blood,  who  believe  in  liberty  and  who  seek 
it.  I  wish  that  we  could  see  all  that.  I  wish 
that  we  could  see  the  history  of  political  prog- 
ress as  it  is  recorded  in  the  institutions  of 
civilized  men,  and  seeing  it,  then  put  to  the 
American  people  the  question:  Why  should 
we  change  our  form  of  government  ? 

When  that  vision  is  revealed  to  the  intelli- 
gent American,  when  his  intelligence  and  con- 
science are  really  reached,  he  will  say  to  these 


So        OUR  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

revolutionists  who  are  inviting  us  to  the  happy 
days  of  the  socialistic  democracy,  No!  He  will 
say  to  the  defenders  of  a  representative  repub- 
lic, Let  us  not  change  our  form  of  government; 
let  us  develop,  let  us  perfect  it,  for  in  so  doing 
we  are  only  responding  to  the  noble  appeal  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  so  to  dedicate  ourselves  to 
the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  "this 
nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom;  and  that  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth." 


An  address  before  the  Commercial  Club  of  Kansas  City, 
Missouri,  November  19,  1908 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

The  noise  and  clamor  of  the  presidential 
campaign  have  now  died  away,  and  it  is  pos- 
sible to  discuss  seriously  and  calmly  some  of 
the  larger  questions  which  confront  the  Amer- 
ican people.  It  is  most  appropriate  that  these 
questions  should  receive  the  consideration  of  so 
representative  a  body  as  this. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  characteristic  of  demo- 
cratic government,  particularly  in  a  country 
so  large  and  with  such  varied  interests  as  our 
own,  that  when  we  are  engaged  in  electing 
our  executives  and  our  legislators,  we  must 
strike  a  balance  between  principle  and  policy, 
and  must  choose  the  course  that  we  as  indi- 
viduals will  follow  in  the  midst  of  a  myriad  of 
minor,  conflicting,  and  distracting  considera- 
tions. What  stands  out  as  the  chief  issue  of 
a  given  political  contest  in  the  mind  of  one 
American,  seems  to  his  fellow  a  quite  subor- 
dinate matter.  One  man  will  vote  for  the  can- 
didate of  his  choice  because  of  his  personality, 

S3 


54  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

although  disliking  his  policies;  another  will  vote 
for  the  same  candidate  because  of  his  policies, 
though  disliking  his  personality;  still  another 
will  vote  for  the  same  candidate  without  re- 
gard to  his  personality  because  some  one  policy 
which  he  advocates  or  some  one  incident  in  his 
career  makes  strong  appeal  for  support.  There- 
fore, it  is  that  we  can  rarely  be  quite  sure  that 
any  given  issue  has  been  settled  by  a  particu- 
lar election.  Our  recourse  must  be  had,  when 
no  election  is  pending  and  when  there  are  no 
distracting  surroundings,  to  that  enlightened 
public  opinion,  to  whose  bar  all  political  policies 
must  be  brought  for  judgment,  and  from  which 
all  political  movements  that  are  to  be  perma- 
nent must  take  their  origin. 

This  government  was  founded  by  men  whose 
minds  were  fixed  upon  the  problems  involved 
in  the  creation  of  political  institutions.  They 
were  thinking  of  liberty,  of  representative  gov- 
ernment, of  protection  against  tyranny  and  spo- 
liation, and  of  ways  and  means  by  which  public 
opinion  might,  in  orderly  fashion,  express  itself 
in  statute  laws,  in  judicial  judgments,  and  in 
executive  acts.  The  task  of  the  founders  was  a 
political  task,  and  with  what  almost  super- 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  55 

human  wisdom,  foresight  and  skill  they  ac- 
complished it,  is  recorded  history. 

The  government  erected  by  the  Constitu- 
tion was  not  at  once  or  easily  adjusted  to  the 
needs  and  desires  of  all  the  people.  Not  only 
were  the  judicial  genius  of  Marshall  and  the 
irrefutable  eloquence  of  Webster  needed  to 
build  the  nation  upon  the  broad  foundations 
that  the  Constitution  had  laid,  but  the  moral 
problem  presented  by  the  existence  of  human 
slavery  had  to  be  solved.  The  lapse  of  many 
years,  the  sincere  efforts  of  a  score  of  con- 
structive statesmen,  and  the  blood  and  tears 
of  millions  of  Americans  alone  solved  that 
problem. 

After  nearly  a  century  of  existence,  the  na- 
tion emerged  from  its  long  period  of  develop- 
ment and  inward  struggle  to  find  itself  a  splen- 
did legal  and  political  unit,  ready  to  face  the 
new  problems  which  an  expanding  territory,  a 
multiplying  population,  and  the  lightning-like 
spread  of  invention,  science,  commerce,  and  in- 
dustry forced  upon  it. 

So  it  has  come  to  pass  that  we  are  no  longer 
confronted  primarily  with  questions  of  govern- 
mental form  and  political  institutions.  The 


56  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

place  of  our  executives,  of  our  courts,  and  of 
our  legislatures,  both  state  and  national,  are 
fixed  with  reasonable  definiteness  and  are  well 
understood  by  the  people.  Such  changes  and 
readjustments  between  them  as  the  future  may 
have  in  store  will  come  in  all  likelihood  by  proc- 
esses of  orderly  development,  and  not  through 
revolution  or  cataclysm. 

Instead  of  questions  involving  the  civil  and 
political  rights  of  the  individual,  and  the  mode 
of  carrying  on  a  representative  government,  we 
are  now  confronted  by  questions  which  are  at 
bottom  not  political  in  the  narrow  sense,  but 
economic.  These  are  the  questions  with  which 
our  political  theories  and  our  political  practices 
are  now  brought  face  to  face,  and  from  the  con- 
sideration of  which  they  cannot  escape.  They 
are  questions  of  what  is  called  business.  The 
most  urgent  matters  for  the  American  people 
to  settle  today,  and  to  settle  right,  relate  to 
the  fundamental  principles  which  shall  control 
their  political  policies,  as  these  policies  are  re- 
lated to  business. 

Three,  and  only  three,  paths  are  open  to  us. 
First,  we  may,  if  we  choose,  adopt  the  policy 
of  laissezfaire,  or  let  alone,  which  has  been  pow- 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  57 

erfully  advocated  by  political  philosophers  of 
high  authority. 

Second,  we  may  take  the  opposite  course  and 
endeavor  to  exercise  collective  ownership  and 
control  of  the  agencies  and  instrumentalities 
of  productive  industry  and  of  transportation, 
which  is  socialism. 

Third,  we  may,  while  preserving  to  ourselves 
the  extraordinary  moral,  economic  and  politi- 
cal benefits  which  flow  from  individual  initia- 
tive and  the  adequate  reward  of  individual 
endeavor,  lay  the  collective  hand  so  heavily 
upon  business  activity  that  the  individual's 
self-interest  shall,  if  it  be  possible,  be  held 
always  subordinate  to  the  common  good. 

To  some,  like  myself,  it  is  sufficient  to  state 
these  three  courses  of  action  to  recommend  the 
one  last  named.  From  this  quick  preference, 
however,  many  dissent,  and  their  dissent  is  so 
emphatic  and  so  warmly  urged  that  it  may  not 
be  passed  by  without  a  hearing. 

To  the  defender  of  laissez  faire  there  is  an 
immediate  and,  I  think,  a  conclusive  answer 
to  be  found  in  the  industrial  and  political  his- 
tory of  the  world  during  the  past  hundred  years. 
The  rapid  growth  and  steady  concentration  of 


58  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

population,  the  annihilation  of  distance  and 
time  by  steam  and  electricity,  the  swift  rise 
of  the  factory  system  and  the  phenomenal  suc- 
cess of  that  form  of  cooperative  industry  known 
as  the  corporation,  have  all  tended  to  bring 
about  a  real,  though  invisible,  business  partner- 
ship between  the  individual  and  the  community, 
and  both  partners  must  be  heard  in  respect 
to  the  policies  which  the  partnership  wishes 
to  pursue.  The  community's  contribution  to 
property  values,  the  community's  grant  of  indi- 
vidual monopoly,  of  patent  rights  and  of  corpo- 
rate privileges,  the  community's  protection  of  in- 
dividual obligations  and  responsibilities  through 
its  enforcement  of  contracts,  and  the  easily 
demonstrated  moral  evils  of  unrestricted  and 
unsupervised  competition,  make  it  plain  that 
whatever  may  have  been  the  advantage  of  a 
policy  of  laissez  faire  earlier  in  the  world's 
history,  the  time  for  it  is  now  passed. 

There  are  those,  and  they  are  many  in  num- 
ber, in  America  as  well  as  in  Europe,  who  hold 
that  the  second  of  the  three  possible  courses  of 
action  named  is  the  one  for  society  to  pursue. 
In  their  beatific  vision  they  see  poverty  and 
suffering,  unhappiness  and  want,  disappearing 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  59 

like  dew  before  the  rising  sun  of  collective  own- 
ership and  control  of  the  agents  and  instru- 
ments of  productive  industry.  These  men  are 
socialists.  Their  hearts  are  often  sound  and 
warm,  but  their  heads  are  neither  hard  nor  clear. 
The  human  beings  to  be  gathered  into  their  col- 
lectivist  system  are  precisely  the  human  beings 
that  are  now  in  the  world,  and  the  children  of 
these.  Human  nature  is  not  going  to  change 
because  a  new  form  of  economic  organization 
is  hit  upon.  All  the  old  passions,  and  desires, 
and  ambitions,  and  weaknesses,  and  sins  which 
have  dogged  the  path  of  humanity  from  its  first 
recorded  appearance  on  earth,  are  going  to  pur- 
sue it  into  the  collectivist's  state.  Instead  of 
the  natural  law  which  selects  an  individual  for 
a  given  task  by  proved  fitness,  there  is  to  be 
selection  by  the  collective  mind.  Some  sacred 
and  uplifting  power  is  to  dwell  in  the  duly  ap- 
pointed collectivist  government  official  which 
will  enable  him  to  do  what,  as  a  citizen  in  our 
representative  republic  he  could  not  accomplish. 
As  an  aspiration,  socialism  is  in  large  meas- 
ure commendable,  though  vague.  As  a  poli- 
tical program  it  asks  us  to  take  the  ship  of 
state  out  on  to  a  fathomless  sea  without  chart 
or  compass  in  a  perpetual  fog.  If  every  elected 


60  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

and  appointed  officer  of  an  American  common- 
wealth were  tomorrow  to  declare  himself  an 
adherent  of  the  socialistic  program,  neither  he 
nor  all  his  colleagues  together  could  do  one 
single  thing  to  substitute  the  collectivist's  state 
for  our  representative  democracy,  save  through 
revolution  and  the  subversion  of  the  constitu- 
tional principles  on  which  our  civilization  and 
our  government  rest.  It  is  worth  while  re- 
membering this  fundamental  fact.  There  is  no 
possible  way  in  which  a  socialistic  state  can  be 
developed  out  of  our  representative  American 
democracy.  It  can  be  substituted  for  that 
representative  democracy,  if  at  all,  only  by  po- 
litical revolution.  The  fundamental  principles 
underlying  our  constitutional  government,  our 
representative  democracy,  are  those  which  are 
the  product  of  the  settled  habits  of  thinking  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  It  took  many  hundreds 
of  years  and  countless  struggles  to  discover  and 
to  establish  them.  Deep  down  at  their  base,  is 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  the  fullest  and 
freest  development  of  his  opportunity,  provided 
only  that  he  respects  the  equal  right  of  his 
fellow.  Out  of  that  principle  has  come  every- 
thing which  we  call  western  civilization,  and  the 
Orient  has  only  stirred  from  its  aeons  of  lethargy 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  61 

when  that  western  principle  has  found  ex- 
pression among  some  part  of  its  population. 
The  American  people  may,  if  they  choose,  take 
the  necessary  revolutionary  steps  to  install  a 
collectivist  or  socialist  state,  but  when  they  do 
they  will  substitute  a  dead  for  a  living  thing. 
They  will  dry  up  at  their  source  the  well-springs 
of  progress,  and  they  will  starve  to  death  those 
splendid  traits  of  benevolence,  human  kind- 
ness and  charity,  which  have  marked  the  up- 
ward path  of  civilization  since  the  religion  of 
Christ  became  one  of  its  most  potent  moving 
forces.  Socialism  is  a  reactionary,  not  a  pro- 
gressive movement.  In  the  name  of  progress, 
it  calls  upon  civilization  to  halt;  in  the  name 
of  a  glorious  and  happy  future,  it  bids  us  re- 
turn to  principles  and  practices  of  a  dead  and 
forlorn  past.  There  is  no  hope  for  America  in 
socialism. 

There  remains  then  the  third  alternative. 
This  is  such  measure  of  individual  and  cor- 
porate oversight  and  control  as  changing  cir- 
cumstances may  require  in  order  to  prevent 
self-interest  in  its  excess  from  damaging  the 
common  good,  without  checking  its  beneficent 
activities. 


62  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

The  questions  involved  in  entering  on  this 
course  of  action  are  in  part  ethical,  in  part 
economic  and  in  part  political. 

From  the  ethical  standpoint  we  must  have 
a  care  that  the  individual  is  given  the  freest 
possible  scope  for  the  exercise  of  his  talents,  and 
that  he  is  protected  in  the  just  and  honest  gains 
which  come  to  him. 

From  the  economic  standpoint  we  must  have 
a  care  not  to  interfere  with  the  highest  pro- 
ductivity, or  with  the  most  equitable  distri- 
bution of  wealth,  unless  one  or  both  of  these 
ends  are  in  conflict  with  a  higher  human  need. 

From  the  political  standpoint  we  must  have 
a  care  that  we  do  not  disturb  the  balance  of 
power  between  state  and  nation;  that  we  do 
not  build  up  a  great  army  of  public  employees 
and  bureaucrats;  and  that  we  do  not  mistake 
the  purpose  of  our  activity  in  this  regard  and 
legislate  solely  for  the  sake  of  legislating  or  to 
allay  clamor,  which  in  propriety  should  be  met 
by  a  clear  exposition  of  its  groundlessness. 

When  we  pass  from  controlling  principles  to 
concrete  matters,  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face 
with  the  fact  that  in  order  to  settle  wisely  the 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  63 

relations  of  our  present-day  politics  to  busi- 
ness, we  must  deal  with  three  chief  problems 
— that  of  banking  and  currency;  that  of  the 
transportation  systems  of  the  country;  and  that 
of  the  large  corporations  which  carry  on  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  products. 

Of  these  the  first  in  importance,  because  fun- 
damental to  every  other  business  question,  is 
the  problem  of  banking  and  currency.  The 
history  of  this  question  in  the  United  States 
is  reasonably  familiar  to  all  intelligent  men. 
The  nation  was  started  on  the  right  path  by 
Alexander  Hamilton,  and  no  statesman  since 
his  time  has  understood  more  clearly  or  stated 
more  cogently  than  he  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples which  control  a  sound  national  system 
of  banking  and  currency.  Hamilton's  funda- 
mental ideas  of  a  national  banking  system  su- 
pervised by  the  government  and  a  national 
bank  currency,  are  incorporated  in  our  system 
today.  But  Jackson  and  Benton  destroyed,  in 
their  successful  war  upon  the  second  bank  of 
the  United  States,  the  institution  which  might 
have  been  made  the  controlling  factor,  under 
government  direction,  in  giving  to  the  business 
of  the  nation  a  sound  and  elastic  currency  sys- 


64  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

tern.  I  venture  to  predict  that  the  closer  we 
get  back  to  the  principles  underlying  Hamil- 
ton's financial  policies,  the  more  nearly  shall 
we  approach  the  development  of  a  sound  sys- 
tem of  banking  and  currency  for  the  United 
States  of  today.  From  the  time  of  Hamilton's 
first  letter  to  Robert  Morris,  written  when  a 
young  soldier  in  camp  at  the  age  of  23,  to  his 
great  report  on  the  public  credit,  made  to  the 
Congress  in  1790,  and  his  opinion  on  the  consti- 
tutionality and  desirability  of  a  national  bank, 
given  to  Washington  in  1791,  that  great  political 
genius  advanced  steadily  in  the  completeness 
of  his  grasp  upon  the  problems  which  the 
financial  necessities  of  the  new  nation  and  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  people's  business  pre- 
sented. Gallatin  in  1811,  Dallas  in  1814,  Cal- 
houn  and  Clay  and  Madison  in  1816,  and 
Marshall,  in  what  is  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant single  opinion  that  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  has  ever  rendered,  made 
in  the  case  of  McCulloch  v.  Maryland  in  1819, 
all  supported  and  sustained  Hamilton's  view. 
The  financial  troubles  and  difficulties  of  the 
United  States  began  when  the  principles  of 
Hamilton  were  forgotten,  and  the  nation  started 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  65 

out  on  the  uncharted  sea  of  reckless  financial 
experiment. 

There  is  now  sitting  a  Monetary  Commis- 
sion clothed  with  the  authority  of  law  to  make 
careful  and  extensive  inquiry  into  the  banking 
and  currency  question,  and  to  formulate  a  re- 
port for  action  by  the  Congress.  This  Com- 
mission has  gone  about  its  work  in  the  wisest 
possible  way.  Without  preconception  or  pre- 
possession, it  has  undertaken  to  study,  with  an 
open  mind,  the  practices  and  experiences  of 
other  civilized  peoples.  This  is  the  method  of 
wisdom  and  of  sanity.  Out  of  it  there  is  al- 
most certain  to  come  a  proposal  for  legislation 
that  will  take  our  banking  and  currency  sys- 
tem out  of  the  unsatisfactory  condition  in  which 
it  now  is,  and  put  it  on  a  firm  foundation,  to 
the  end  that  business,  large  and  small,  may  be 
carried  on  without  fear  of  money  famine  or 
financial  panic,  and  the  legitimate  needs  of 
every  portion  of  the  population  in  every  part 
of  the  country  may  be  equally  and  equitably 
served.  Nothing  could  be  more  unfortunate 
than  to  allow  this  question  to  become  or  to 
be  made  a  partisan  one.  If  we  approach  its 
study  with  open  mind  and  permit  ourselves 


66  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

to  learn  by  the  experience  of  other  nations, 
and  to  seek  suggestion  and  wisdom  from  every 
source,  we  shall  not  only  do  what  is  worthy 
of  an  intelligent,  self-governing  people,  but  we 
shall  greatly  increase  the  chance  of  arriving  at 
a  satisfactory  conclusion. 

The  second  important  problem  which  faces 
us  is  that  which  relates  to  the  transportation 
systems  of  the  country.  That  we  have  been 
on  the  right  track  in  the  main,  in  the  legisla- 
tion which  has  created  State  Railway  Com- 
missions and  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
mission, seems  to  me  indubitable.  These  are  the 
arms  or  agencies  of  government  for  exercising 
the  necessary  control  over  the  transporta- 
tion systems  of  the  land.  We  have,  however, 
fallen  far  short  of  success  in  our  legislation 
relating  to  railways,  and  we  cannot  afford  to 
postpone  much  longer  the  correction  of  the 
errors  and  blunders  which  have  been  made. 
It  is  a  misfortune  that  the  so-called  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Act  was  found  to  relate  to  railways. 
The  conditions  surrounding  the  railways  and 
those  surrounding  the  great  industrial  corpor- 
ations are  so  different  that  any  attempt  to 
unite  in  a  single  measure  the  provisions  for 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  67 

their  governmental  oversight  is  foredoomed  to 
failure.  Moreover,  our  State  Railway  Com- 
missions and  our  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
mission should  themselves  be  composed  of  men 
who  stand  in  the  same  relation  of  knowledge 
and  experience  to  the  railway  business  of  the 
country,  that  the  Justices  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  and  of  the  State  Supreme 
Courts  occupy  toward  the  members  of  the 
Bar  who  practice  before  them.  To  gain  a 
seat  upon  a  State  Railway  Commission  or 
upon  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission, 
ought  to  be  the  highest  ambition  of  a  success- 
ful railway  man,  just  as  to  gain  a  seat  upon 
the  Supreme  Court  bench  of  his  State  or  of 
the  United  States  is  the  highest  ambition 
which  a  competent  lawyer  can  entertain.  It 
is  idle  to  say  in  objection  that  Commissioners 
so  chosen  would  favor  the  interests  with  which 
they  had  been  affiliated.  No  such  charge  can 
fairly  be  brought  against  our  higher  Judges 
nor  could  it  be  brought  against  the  tried  and 
tested  men  who  would  serve  upon  these  Com- 
missions to  oversee  the  transportation  business 
of  the  country.  What  the  railways  now  most 
fear,  and  justly  fear,  is  supervision  by  ignor- 


68  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

ant  and  narrow-minded  men  who  have  no  real 
conception  of  the  problems  of  railway  con- 
struction, operation  and  management.  If  we 
are  to  have,  as  we  must  have,  these  govern- 
mental agencies  for  the  supervision  of  business, 
it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to  make  these  agencies 
in  all  respects  competent.  The  best  State 
Railway  Commissions  and  the  best  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission  would  be  ones  that 
were  constituted  of  men  who  were  appointed 
to  membership  upon  them  because  of  long, 
successful  and  honorable  railway  service.  We 
have  long  since  substituted  judicial  procedure 
for  the  primitive  trial  by  ordeal  in  ordinary 
criminal  cases,  but  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  we  are  not  even  today  compelling  the 
transportation  systems  to  submit  to  trial  by 
ordeal  rather  than  to  judicial  inquiry  and  de- 
termination. 

Moreover,  in  our  state  and  national  supervi- 
sion of  the  common  carriers,  we  must  have  a 
care  that  we  do  not  attempt  to  substitute  these 
governmental  Commissions  for  the  Boards  of 
Directors.  The  United  States  Supreme  Court 
itself  has  said  that  "railroads  are  the  private 
property  of  their  owners;  that  while  from  the 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  69 

public  character  of  the  work  in  which  they  are 
engaged  the  public  has  the  power  to  prescribe 
rules  for  securing  faithful  and  efficient  service 
and  equality  between  shippers  and  communi- 
ties, yet  in  no  proper  sense  is  the  public  a  gen- 
eral manager."  *  The  Supreme  Court  has  also 
said:  "When  one  devotes  his  property  to  a 
use  in  which  the  public  has  an  interest,  he,  in 
effect,  grants  to  the  public  an  interest  in  that 
use,  and  must  submit  to  be  controlled  by  the 
public,  for  the  common  good,  to  the  extent  of 
the  interest  he  has  thus  created."  These  two 
principles,  laid  down  by  the  highest  judicial 
authority  in  the  land,  indicate  the  lines  along 
which  and  within  which  future  legislation,  both 
state  and  national,  regarding  common  carriers, 
should  proceed.  The  interest  of  the  commu- 
nity in  the  efficient  and  equitable  operation  of 
the  railways  is  a  vital  interest;  the  interest  of 
the  community  in  the  operation  of  the  rail- 
ways in  a  manner  profitable  to  their  stock- 
holders is  equally  vital. 
The  third  important  concrete  question  of 

1  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  v.  Chicago  Great  Western 
Railway  Company,  209  U.  S.,  p.  118  (1908). 
*Munn  v.  Illinois,  94  U.  S.,  p.  126  (1876). 


70  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

the  moment  relates  to  the  large  industrial 
corporations  known  as  trusts.  On  this  sub- 
ject an  incredible  amount  of  nonsense  has  been 
talked  before  the  American  people  for  many, 
many  years.  What  is  needed  now  is  the  in- 
telligence and  the  courage  to  look  the  facts 
squarely  in  the  face,  to  cease  calling  names 
and  to  inquire  in  what  direction  the  highest 
public  interest  lies.  Combinations  in  restraint 
of  trade  are  obnoxious  to  our  sense  of  nat- 
ural justice  and  have  long  been  forbidden  by 
the  common  law.  Whether  a  given  combina- 
tion is  in  restraint  of  trade  or  not,  is,  in  es- 
sence, a  matter  for  judicial  inquiry  and  de- 
termination. Every  attempt  to  lay  down  a 
general  rule  or  a  definition  of  combinations 
that,  by  their  very  existence,  are  in  restraint 
of  trade,  has  been,  and  I  think  will  always 
be,  futile.  Economic  conditions  change  almost 
while  we  are  talking  about  them,  and  no  na- 
tion can  carry  on  a  successful  and  profitable 
domestic  and  foreign  trade  which  attempts  to 
draw  hard  and  fast  lines  and  limits,  based  on 
present  conditions,  for  the  business  activity  of 
the  future. 

Monopolies,  if  created  by  law,  we  can  if  we 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  71 

choose  tax  in  a  way  that  will  rob  them  of  their 
power  for  harm.  Monopolies  not  created  by 
law  we  can  reach  either  by  the  taxing  power  or 
by  the  exercise  of  supervision  in  the  public  in- 
terest. Uncontrolled  monopolies  are  not  likely 
to  be  serviceable  to  the  public.  A  controlled 
monopoly,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  highly 
serviceable.  We  need  to  cultivate  the  habit 
and  the  spirit  of  looking  into  the  facts  in  each 
case  and  of  inquiring  how  the  public  service, 
prices,  steadiness  of  employment,  the  relative 
rate  of  wages,  and  the  foreign  export  trade  are 
affected  by  a  given  industrial  undertaking. 
Uniform  and  universal  denunciation  is  even 
more  ludicrous  and  unsatisfactory,  if  that  be 
possible,  than  uniform  and  universal  eulogy  of 
these  economic  undertakings.  To  attempt  to 
assign  a  measure  of  virtue  or  vice  to  an  indus- 
trial corporation  on  the  basis  of  the  amount  of 
its  capital  stock  or  the  volume  of  its  business, 
is  as  absurd  as  to  measure  the  public  useful- 
ness of  a  citizen  by  his  height  or  his  weight. 
The  question  of  importance  to  the  public,  is  not 
how  tall  or  how  heavy  is  a  given  individual, 
but  what  does  he  do?  What  kind  of  a  char- 
acter has  he?  What  is  his  influence  on  others? 


72  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

These  are  precisely  the  questions  to  be  raised 
in  the  public  interest  about  industrial  corpor- 
ations. 

We  must  not  unduly  exalt  the  principle  of 
competition  and  we  must  not  fail  to  lay  proper 
emphasis  upon  the  public  benefits  which  may 
follow  from  properly  regulated  and  supervised 
cooperation.  When  the  Anti-Trust  Act  was  un- 
der consideration  by  the  Senate,  Senator  Sher- 
man himself  said  that  it  was  not  intended  to 
announce  any  new  principle  of  law,  but  only 
to  apply  the  old  and  well-regulated  principles 
of  the  common  law  to  cases  arising  within  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  federal  courts.  Interpreted 
in  this  spirit,  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act 
means  flexibility,  adaptability,  reasonableness, 
public  benefit. 

No  one  of  these  three  great  questions  is 
properly  a  matter  for  partisan  exploitation 
or  for  party  difference.  Each  of  the  three 
should  be  settled  as  common-sense  business 
men  would  settle  any  question,  after  a  close 
study  of  all  the  facts  and  with  the  public  in- 
terest always  uppermost  as  a  controlling  mo- 
tive in  pointing  to  any  given  solution  or  set- 


BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS  73 

tlement.  The  American  people  cannot  solve 
these  questions  of  banking  and  currency,  of 
the  railways  and  of  the  great  industrial  cor- 
porations, either  with  rhetoric  or  in  passion. 
They  can  solve  them  only  by  solicitous  study 
and  intelligent  reflection.  It  is  the  highest 
duty  of  the  patriotic  business  interests  of  the 
United  States,  now  that  there  is  an  interval  be- 
tween political  canvasses  and  campaigns,  to  ap- 
ply themselves  with  all  the  power  of  their  great 
influence  to  the  task  of  settling  these  questions 
in  which  politics  and  business  border  so  closely 
upon  each  other,  in  ways  that  will  conduce  to 
the  moral  and  material  upbuilding  of  our 
people,  as  well  as  to  their  happiness  and  pros- 
perity. 

This  gathering  is  held  each  year  in  commem- 
oration of  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain  ne- 
gotiated by  John  Jay,  under  instructions  from 
President  Washington,  which  was  signed  on 
November  19,  1794,  and  ratified  by  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  on  August  18  of  the 
following  year.  In  your  presence  I  am  glad  to 
recall  the  fact  that  John  Jay  was  graduated 
from  the  college,  now  grown  into  a  national 


74  BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

university,  which  I  have  the  honor  and  the 
privilege  to  serve.  He  belongs  with  the  Amer- 
ican immortals.  The  great  treaty  which  bears 
his  name,  and  which  you  so  justly  celebrate,  is 
itself  a  landmark  of  our  nation's  history.  It 
was  an  early  and  potent  contribution  to  the 
solution  of  grave  problems  of  business  and  of 
politics.  It  was  the  work  of  a  political  mind 
of  a  high  order  of  excellence  and  of  unexcelled 
patriotism.  It  called  forth  the  warm  approval 
of  Washington  and  stirred  the  genius  of  Ham- 
ilton to  one  of  his  most  noteworthy  exhibitions 
of  persuasive  power.  It  opened  the  way  to 
the  development  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and 
it  was  the  first  step  in  the  establishment  of 
those  good  relations  with  Great  Britain  that 
are  now  a  satisfaction  and  a  source  of  pride 
to  both  nations.  How  better  can  we  approach 
the  problems  of  today  than  in  the  memory 
and  under  the  inspiration  of  the  work  of  the 
fathers  who  so  solidly  laid  the  noble  founda- 
tions on  which  it  is  our  opportunity,  our  priv- 
ilege and  our  duty  to  build? 


Ill 

POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 


An  address  at  the  One  Hundred  and  Forty  Third  Annual 

Banquet  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the 

State  of  New  York,  November  16,  1911 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

One  trouble  with  politics  and  business  is  the 
amount  of  talk  about  it.  Probably  more  has 
been  said  and  more  has  been  written  on  this 
subject  in  the  United  States,  during  the  past 
fifteen  or  twenty  years,  than  has  ever  been 
written  before  on  any  subject  since  the  world 
began.  What  strikes  me  most,  as  I  read  these 
innumerable  speeches  and  orations  and  articles, 
is  the  perpetual  placidity  with  which  these  tor- 
rents of  words  flow  from  the  serene  seclusion 
of  an  empty  mind.  In  fact  there  is  so  much 
and  so  incessant  talk  about  these  subjects  that 
I  cannot  help  recalling  an  admirable  story 
which  is  told  of  Robert  Southey,  once  Poet 
Laureate  of  England.  Southey  was  boasting 
to  a  Quaker  friend  of  how  exceedingly  well  he 
occupied  his  time,  how  he  organized  it,  how 
he  permitted  no  moment  to  escape;  how  every 
instant  was  used;  how  he  studied  Portuguese 
while  he  shaved,  and  higher  mathematics  in 
his  bath.  And  then  the  Quaker  said  to  him 
softly:  "But  when,  friend,  dost  thee  think?" 

77 


78  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

My  impression  is  that  we  need  now  some 
time  to  think,  in  order  that  reflection  and 
study  of  principle,  and  grasp  upon  realities, 
may  take  the  place  of  perpetual  discussion  and 
exposition,  partly  of  what  is,  partly  of  what 
never  was,  partly  of  what  never  can  be.  We 
may  be  as  optimistic  as  we  please — and  I  am 
a  confirmed  optimist — but  the  fact  of  the 
matter  is,  that  we  are  today  in  the  United 
States  engaged  in  industrial  civil  war;  and,  as 
in  all  civil  wars,  the  chief  loss,  the  chief  bur- 
den, the  chief  suffering,  fall  upon  those  who 
are  non-combatants,  and  upon  those  who  are 
not  conscious  of  any  responsibility  for  the 
struggle.  I  saw  advertised  some  time  ago  in 
England  a  child's  comic  history  of  Great  Brit- 
ain. I  wonder  whether  the  time  has  not  come 
when  some  one  should  attempt  to  write  a 
comic  history  of  the  United  States,  in  the  hope 
that  wit  and  sarcasm  may  have  some  effect 
where  argument  and  reason  seem  utterly  to 
fail? 

What  is  the  situation?  Government  is  at 
war  with  the  economic  forces  of  the  body  poli- 
tic. That  is  civil  war.  Government  armed 
with  the  strong  weapon  of  the  law  is  one 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  79 

combatant;  economic  forces  urged  on  by  self- 
interest  and  the  necessities  of  the  world's  busi- 
ness are  the  other.  The  cries  that  fill  the  air 
are  of  war  to  the  knife, — of  extermination,  de- 
struction, wiping  out  of  enemies.  And  those 
of  us  who  are  neither  members  of  government 
nor  immediate  agents  of  the  great  economic 
undertakings  are  left,  while  onlookers,  to  meet 
the  cost;  and  the  cost  is  a  terrible  one.  What 
has  happened  in  these  United  States  to  bring 
about  in  fifteen  or  twenty  years  an  almost  com- 
plete reversal  of  business  conditions?  We  are 
told,  on  the  one  hand,  that  nothing  has  hap- 
pened; but  that  men's  passions  have  been 
stirred,  that  jealousy  has  been  aroused,  and 
that  people  are  attacking  that  which  they  do 
not  like — a  most  inadequate  and  helpless  ex- 
planation. On  the  other  hand,  we  are  told 
that  what  has  happened  has  been  a  new  vision 
of  liberty,  a  new  insight  into  ethical  and  social 
conditions,  and  that  this  new  vision,  and  this 
new  insight,  are  finding  expression,  and  will  find 
expression,  in  these  amazing  public  policies. 
That  is  another  helpless  and  inadequate  ex- 
planation, and  it  indicates  that  some  of  our  ex- 
cellent friends  are  dilating  with  the  wrong 


8o  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

emotion.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  that  a 
great  many  good  people  in  this  world  mistake 
emotional  insanity  for  moral  enthusiasm. 

It  is  necessary  to  look  a  little  deeper  to  get 
at  the  actual  facts.  My  impression  is  very 
distinct  that  what  is  going  on  in  this  country 
is  nothing  less  than  a  test  of  the  adaptability 
of  our  institutions  and  a  test  of  our  national 
common  sense,  a  test  being  imposed  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  utterly  new,  strange,  unexpected 
and  unpredicted  economic  conditions  and  forces 
working  upon  a  gigantic  scale.  In  other  words, 
we  are  living  in  one  of  those  periods  of  de- 
velopment and  movement  and  change  and  evo- 
lution when  institutions  established  and  em- 
bodied in  law  and  in  political  procedure,  are 
put  to  it  to  keep  pace  with  natural  and  orderly 
and  inevitable  development  in  social  and  eco- 
nomic conditions. 

There  is  a  very  large  body  of  opinion  in  this 
country  and  a  very  powerful  body  of  opinion, 
which  in  my  judgment  utterly  mistakes  the 
situation  and  utterly  mistakes  the  remedy. 
That  is  a  body  of  opinion  which  tries  to  solve 
our  existing  problems  and  difficulties  by  pour- 
ing new  wine  into  old  bottles,  by  turning  back 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  81 

the  hands  on  the  clock  of  industrial  and  com- 
mercial progress,  and  by  pursuing  an  aero- 
plane by  mounting  a  step-ladder  trundled  along 
on  a  wheelbarrow. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  and  it  may  just  as 
well  be  recognized  in  this  country  and  in  every 
other  country,  that  the  era  of  unrestricted  in- 
dividual competition  has  gone  forever.  There 
is  no  power  in  Presidents,  there  is  no  power 
in  Attorneys-General,  there  is  no  power  in  Su- 
preme Courts,  there  is  no  power  in  Congress, 
there  is  no  power  in  political  platforms,  there 
is  no  power  in  oratory  to  restore  it.  And  the 
reason  why  it  has  gone  is  partly  because  it  has 
done  its  work,  partly  because  it  has  been  taken 
up  into  a  new  and  larger  principle  of  coopera- 
tion. 

What  happens  in  every  form  of  organic  evo- 
lution is  that  an  old  part  no  longer  useful  to 
the  structure  drops  away,  and  its  functions 
pass  over  into  and  are  absorbed  by  a  new  de- 
velopment. That  new  development  is  coop- 
eration, and  cooperation  as  a  substitute  for 
unlimited,  unrestricted,  individual  competition 
has  come  to  stay  as  an  economic  fact,  and 
legal  institutions  will  have  to  be  adjusted  to 


82  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

it.  It  cannot  be  stopped.  It  ought  not  to  be 
stopped.  It  is  not  in  the  public  interest  that 
it  should  be  stopped. 

How  has  this  cooperation  manifested  itself? 
This  new  movement  of  cooperation  has  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  last  sixty  or  seventy  years 
chiefly  in  the  limited  liability  corporation.  I 
weigh  my  words,  when  I  say  that  in  my  judg- 
ment the  limited  liability  corporation  is  the 
greatest  single  discovery  of  modern  times, 
whether  you  judge  it  by  its  social,  by  its 
ethical,  by  its  industrial  or,  in  the  long  run, — 
after  we  understand  it  and  know  how  to  use 
it, — by  its  political,  effects.  Even  steam  and 
electricity  are  far  less  important  than  the  lim- 
ited liability  corporation,  and  they  would  be 
reduced  to  comparative  impotence  without  it. 
What  is  this  limited  liability  corporation?  It 
is  simply  a  device  by  which  a  large  number 
of  individuals  may  share  in  an  undertaking 
without  risking  in  that  undertaking  more  than 
they  voluntarily  and  individually  assume.  It 
substitutes  cooperation  on  a  large  scale  for  in- 
dividual, cut-throat,  parochial  competition.  It 
makes  possible  huge  economy  in  production 
and  in  trading.  It  means  the  steadier  em- 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  83 

i 

ployment  of  labor  at  an  increased  wage.     It 

means  the  modern  provision  of  industrial  in- 
surance, of  care  for  disability,  old  age  and 
widowhood.  It  means — and  this  is  vital  to  a 
body  like  this — it  means  the  only  possible  en- 
gine for  carrying  on  international  trade  on  a 
scale  commensurate  with  modern  needs  and 
opportunities. 

What  would  happen  to  the  export  trade  of 
the  United  States  if  we  were  to  give  up  our 
limited  liability  corporations  and  go  back  to 
individual  competition?  Any  member  of  this 
Chamber  can  answer  that  question  for  him- 
self. If  this  principle  is  so  beneficent  and  so 
important,  that  as  soon  as  it  was  discovered  it 
spread  all  over  the  civilized  world  and  brought 
about  a  development  the  like  of  which  man  has 
never  seen,  how  have  our  troubles  arisen?  I 
venture  to  think  that  our  troubles  have  arisen, 
and  can  only  arise,  from  one  of  two  causes. 
They  can  only  arise  from  the  economic  abuse 
involved  in  the  absolute  control  of  prices,  ab- 
horrent alike  to  the  instinct  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  people  and  to  our  common  law,  or,  from 
the  moral  delinquency  of  unfair,  dishonorable 
and  dishonest  methods  in  business. 


84  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

Our  troubles  do  not  arise  from  the  size  of 
corporations,  they  do  not  arise  from  the  per- 
centage of  control  of  business,  they  do  not 
arise  from  amount  of  trade  done;  they  arise 
not  from  limited  liability  corporations  at  all, 
no  matter  how  big  they  are;  but  they  arise  as 
troubles  of  this  kind  always  arise,  from  indi- 
vidual delinquents;  and  we  need  no  more  law 
than  we  now  have  to  get  at  individuals  who 
commit  immoral  offences,  dishonorable  acts, 
whether  in  trade  or  out  of  it. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  time  has  come  when 
we  need  in  this  country  more  than  we  ever 
needed  before,  a  campaign  not  of  virulent  at- 
tack and  abuse,  but  a  campaign  of  enlighten- 
ment and  patient  education.  My  mind  goes 
back  not  so  long  ago,  to  the  years  1894  and 
1895.  I  remember,  and  you  remember,  the 
feeling  which  very  many  of  us  then  had  that 
our  country  was  threatened  with  a  false  mone- 
tary policy.  We  felt  that  we  were  likely  to  be 
discredited  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  and  handi- 
capped in  our  business  by  being  forced  into 
the  acceptance  of  a  false  standard  of  currency. 
What  happened?  The  business  men,  the  more 
thoughtful  citizens  of  all  parties  assembled 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  85 

together,  at  first  in  Indianapolis  and  then  else- 
where, and  they  began  a  campaign,  a  patient 
campaign  of  education.  The  purpose  of  that 
campaign  was  to  make  the  average  American 
citizen,  who  is  at  bottom  perfectly  honest  and 
who  wants  to  do  right,  to  make  the  average 
American  citizen  understand  that  the  facts  had 
not  been  fully  presented  to  him  by  the  other 
side,  that  their  arguments  were  futile  and  in- 
conclusive. At  the  end  of  that  campaign  when 
the  polls  were  closed  in  November,  1896,  one  of 
the  most  stupendous  and  overwhelming  political 
triumphs  this  country  has  ever  seen  was  regis- 
tered all  over  these  United  States.  Not  in  one 
state  alone,  not  in  one  section  alone,  but  every- 
where the  men  who  really  believed  that  there 
was  an  economic  and  moral  principle  at  stake 
diligently  carried  on  a  campaign  which  con- 
vinced the  average  American,  because  his  in- 
telligence and  his  conscience  were  reached. 
We  find  ourselves  in  precisely  that  sort  of 
position  now.  In  twelve  months  from  this 
time  we  shall  have  elected  a  President  of 
the  United  States,  we  shall  have  chosen  a  new 
House  of  Representatives,  and  we  shall  have 
provided  for  the  election  of  a  large  number  of 


86  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

new  Senators  of  the  United  States,  and  our 
policies  will  substantially  be  fixed  for  four 
years  to  come.  It  will  be  settled  then  whether 
this  civil  war  is  going  to  continue,  futile,  hope- 
less, purposeless,  stupid,  for  four  years  more, 
or  whether  out  of  it  all  is  going  to  come  some 
constructive  national  policy  that  accepts  eco- 
nomic facts  as  they  are,  and  instead  of  trying 
to  refute  and  rebut  and  disable  them,  har- 
nesses them  in  the  public  interest,  and  makes 
them  public  servants. 

There  is  no  use  in  abusing  the  President  of 
the  United  States  because  he  enforces  the  law 
as  it  is.  There  is  no  use  in  attacking  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  because  it 
puts  into  its  decisions  admirable  words  that 
some  people  do  not  like.  The  real  body  to 
reach  and  to  convince  in  this  country  is  the 
legislative  body,  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States.  If  anything  is  to  be  done  that  ex- 
presses a  change  of  public  opinion  it  must  be 
done  by  and  through  the  national  legislature. 

I  know  how  unsafe  it  is  for  any  layman 
even  to  mention  the  Sherman  law.  I  know 
that  there  is  a  prejudice  in  some  political  and 
journalistic  circles  against  a  layman  saying 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  87 

anything  about  that  law  except  the  single 
word  "Guilty."  But  let  me  suggest  that  you 
do  not  agitate  for  an  amendment  of  the  Sher- 
man law.  Supplement  it,  if  you  like,  but  do 
not  amend  it.  The  Sherman  law  has  now 
been  subjected  to  twenty  years  of  the  most 
careful,  the  most  extensive  and  the  most  elab- 
orate legal  and  judicial  examination  and  de- 
termination. Under  it  we  are  working  out 
a  solution  slowly,  patiently,  and  with  much 
doubt;  but  we  are  working  out  a  solution  of 
the  relations  of  business  to  that  law  by  the 
very  processes  which  have  always  been  those 
governing  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  life,  the  process 
of  the  application  of  the  common  law,  building 
up  from  precedent  to  precedent;  and  the  man 
who  undertakes  to  amend  that  law  will  make 
it  worse.  The  first  thing  that  will  be  done  in 
that  case  will  be  to  except  some  privileged 
people  from  it,  and  the  only  people  who  will 
be  excepted  will  be  those  with  a  large  number 
of  votes.  If  you  do  not  think  so,  read  the 
platforms  in  the  last  political  campaign.  Go 
back  and  examine  the  discussions  which  led  up 
to  the  adoption  of  those  platforms,  and  you 
will  find  that  the  strength  of  the  Sherman  law, 


88  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

as  now  interpreted  by  the  Supreme  Court,  lies 
in  the  fact  that  it  applies  to  every  interest  in 
the  country.  That  is  its  strength.  It  applies 
to  agriculturists;  it  applies  to  horticulturists; 
it  applies  to  labor  unions.  All  of  these  have 
sought  time  and  time  again  exemption  from 
the  act.  It  is  vital,  if  the  principle  of  that 
law  is  to  be  interpreted  judicially  and  fairly 
over  a  long  period  of  years,  that  it  shall  have 
this  undisturbed  and  unlimited  application. 

There  is  nothing  new  about  all  this  conflict 
over  large  and  new  business  undertakings.  We 
Americans  are  very  fond  of  thinking  that  his- 
tory began  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  1776;  and 
that  most  things  of  importance  date  from  about 
the  last  Presidential  election.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  there  has  not  a  single  thing  been  said  about 
corporations,  about  large  industrial  combina- 
tions, which  was  not  said  in  England  about 
co-partnerships,  when  co-partnerships  were 
first  invented.  You  may  go  all  the  way  back 
five  hundred  years,  and  you  will  find  exactly 
these  same  expressions.  I  ran  upon  this  the 
other  day.  Let  me  read  it,  and  perhaps  you 
may  guess  from  what  American  daily  news- 
paper it  comes: 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  89 

"The  merchants  form  great  companies  and 
become  wealthy;  but  many  of  them  are  dis- 
honest and  cheat  one  another.  Hence  the  di- 
rectors of  the  companies,  who  have  charge  of 
the  accounts,  are  nearly  always  richer  than 
their  associates.  Those  who  thus  grow  rich 
are  clever,  since  they  do  not  have  the  repu- 
tation of  being  thieves." 

That  was  not  published  in  New  York,  or 
Chicago  or  San  Francisco.  That  is  found  in 
the  Chronicle  of  Augsburg,  Germany,  in  1512. 
In  one  year  more  that  quotation  will  be  four 
hundred  years  old. 

They  were  very  much  disturbed  about  this 
problem  in  those  days,  and  the  Diet  of  Nu- 
remberg appointed  a  committee  in  1522  to  in- 
vestigate monopolies.  They  sent  an  inquiry  to 
several  cities,  to  Boards  of  Trade  and  Chambers 
of  Commerce,  to  know  what  better  be  done. 
This  is  the  answer  they  got  from  Augsburg: 

"It  is  impossible  to  limit  the  size  of  the 
companies  for  that  would  limit  business  and 
hurt  the  common  welfare;  the  bigger  and  more 
numerous  they  are  the  better  for  everybody. 
If  a  merchant  is  not  perfectly  free  to  do  busi- 
ness in  Germany  he  will  go  elsewhere  to  Ger- 


90  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

many's  loss.  Any  one  can  see  what  harm  and 
evil  such  an  action  would  mean  to  us.  If  a 
merchant  cannot  do  business,  above  a  certain 
amount,  what  is  he  to  do  with  his  surplus 
money?  It  is  impossible  to  set  a  limit  to  bus- 
iness, and  it  would  be  well  to  let  the  merchant 
alone  and  put  no  restrictions  on  his  ability  or 

capital Some   people   talk   of  limiting 

the  earning  capacity  of  investments.  This 
would  be  unbearable  and  would  work  great 
injustice  and  harm  by  taking  away  the  live- 
lihood of  widows,  orphans  and  other  sufferers, 
noble  and  non-noble,  who  derive  their  income 
from  investments  in  these  companies.  Many 
merchants  out  of  love  and  friendship  invest 
the  money  of  their  friends — men,  women  and 
children — who  know  nothing  of  business,  in 
order  to  provide  them  with  an  assured  income. 
Hence  any  one  can  see  that  the  idea  that  the 
merchant  companies  undermine  the  public  wel- 
fare ought  not  to  be  seriously  considered.  The 
small  merchant  complains  that  he  cannot  earn 
as  much  as  the  companies.  That  is  like  the 
old  complaint  of  the  common  laborer  that  he 
earns  so  little  wages.  All  this  is  true  enough, 
but  are  the  complaints  justifiable?" 


POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS  91 

I  read  that  to  illustrate  that  the  business 
and  political  mind  of  Europe  has  been  on  this 
question  for  at  least  four  hundred  years.  If 
you  will  read  Adam  Smith,  if  you  will  read 
Buckle,  you  will  find  out  precisely  what  hap- 
pens when  this  kind  of  thing  is  attempted. 
In  other  words,  we  must,  if  we  are  rational 
and  sensible,  learn  by  the  world's  experience. 
We  must  learn  that  economic  laws,  economic 
principles,  based  on  everlasting  human  nature 
are  fundamental  and  vital,  and  your  care  and 
mine,  as  citizens  of  this  Republic,  is  not  to  in- 
terfere with  these  laws,  not  to  check  them; 
but  to  see  to  it  that  no  moral  wrong  is  done 
in  their  name. 

That  is  a  very  different  proposition  from 
that  of  overturning  a  great  economic  and 
industrial  system  by  statute.  You  may  be 
perfectly  certain  that,  try  as  one  will,  ha- 
rangue as  do  office-holders  and  candidates  for 
office,  exhort  as  do  the  demagogues  all  over 
the  land,  they  may  worry,  they  may  annoy, 
they  may  distress;  but  the  chief  worry,  the 
chief  annoyance,  the  chief  distress  will  fall 
upon  those  of  us  who  are  innocent  of  partici- 
pation in  the  struggle,  and  who  are  simply 


92  POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS 

private  citizens  among  the  ninety-three  or 
ninety-four  millions  of  our  people.  You  can- 
not control  these  fundamental  economic  proc- 
esses by  human  statutes;  and  it  is  not  in  the 
public  interest  that  you  should.  In  other 
words,  we  have  now  reached  a  point  where 
with  the  experience  of  the  world  before  us  it 
is  our  place  and  our  business  as  intelligent,  pa- 
triotic Americans  to  look  the  facts  in  the  face; 
to  initiate  and  carry  on,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  an  effective  campaign  of  education  that 
will  make  clear  to  the  great  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple what  are  fundamental  economic  laws  and 
what  is  the  relation  of  those  laws  to  the  pos- 
sibilities of  statute-making;  and  then  to  de- 
mand that  in  the  highest  public  interests  con- 
structive statesmanship  be  substituted  for  the 
everlasting  antics  of  political  demagoguery. 


IV 

THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 


An  address  before  the  National  Education  Association  at 
Denver,  Colorado,  July  6,  1909 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

Today  the  schools  and  colleges  of  the  land 
are  justly  called  upon  to  bear  a  heavy  bur- 
den. Instruction,  however  good,  and  disci- 
pline, however  excellent,  are  but  means  to  an 
end.  That  end  is  citizenship  and  the  proper 
preparation  for  it.  Nor  is  citizenship  to  be 
thought  of  as  something  abstract,  theoretical, 
remote.  It  is  desperately  practical  and  deals 
with  that  which  is  here  and  now.  Our  nation 
is  just  now  in  a  very  political  mood.  It  is 
turning  over  anxiously  many  grave  problems, 
the  solution  of  which  is  of  vital  consequence 
to  the  whole  people. 

For  example,  several  imposing  political  an- 
tinomies confront  us.  The  natural  desire  to 
develop  foreign  commerce,  and  to  enrich  our 
people  thereby,  finds  itself  face  to  face  with 
the  determined  purpose  to  throw  the  protect- 
ing arm  of  government  about  domestic  indus- 
try. The  definite  wish  to  attract  to  our  shores 
the  ambitious  and  the  worthy  from  all  the 
world  is  held  in  check  by  the  stubborn  weight 

95 


96  THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

of  the  race  problem,  the  roots  of  which  are 
deep  down  in  the  nature  of  man.  The  pur- 
pose to  keep  open  to  every  individual  all  pos- 
sible avenues  of  usefulness  and  all  possible 
opportunities  for  lawful  acquisition,  is  opposed 
by  the  determination  not  to  permit  the  de- 
velopment under  law  of  great  organizations, 
powerful  enough  to  bend  the  law  to  their  own 
purpose  and  to  control  the  state  itself.  Sur- 
rounded by  conditions  such  as  these,  it  is  nat- 
ural to  reflect  upon  the  principles  which  under- 
lie and  control  good  citizenship. 

The  American  citizen  at  the  beginning  of 
the  twentieth  century  has  something  more  to 
do  than  to  face,  and  if  possible  to  solve,  these 
contemporary  problems,  complicated  and  diffi- 
cult as  they  are.  He  has  also,  and  first  of  all, 
to  preserve  and  protect  those  underlying  prin- 
ciples of  civil  and  political  liberty  which  were 
established  by  the  fathers,  and  which  have 
been  handed  down  to  him  as  the  basis  on 
which  the  whole  fabric  of  this  Republic  rests. 
To  fail  to  solve  the  problems  of  today  would 
certainly  damage,  and  perhaps  destroy,  the 
fundamental  principles  of  Anglo-Saxon  institu- 
tions. On  the  other  hand,  to  solve  those  prob- 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP  97 

lems  in  ways  that  antagonize  and  contradict 
the  great  insights  of  the  past  two  thousand 
years,  which  insights  have  crystallized  into 
forms  of  liberty  and  modes  of  government  as 
familiar  and  as  necessary  as  the  air  we  breathe, 
would  be  not  to  solve  them  at  all,  but  only  to 
postpone  and  to  complicate  their  possible  so- 
lution. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  the  educational  in- 
strumentalities of  the  country,  schools,  col- 
leges, and  universities  alike,  have  before  them 
here  a  task  which  takes  precedence  of  all 
questions  of  school  organization  and  manage- 
ment, of  programs  of  study  and  curriculum, 
of  teachers'  salaries  and  tenure  of  office,  of 
general  versus  vocational  training,  of  second- 
ary and  ancillary  questions  of  every  sort — 
the  task,  namely,  of  preparing  intelligent  Amer- 
ican citizens  to  take  up  each  hi?  own  share  of 
the  nation's  responsibilities. 

The  unrest  which  is  abroad  in  the  world, 
and  which  is  found  alike  in  Europe  and  in 
America,  in  the  unchanging  East  as  well  aa 
in  the  restless  and  rapidly-moving  West,  is  in 
no  small  part  due  to  the  lack  of  understanding 
of  what  is  going  on  in  the  world  and  what  has 


98  THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

gone  on  hitherto.  What  one  does  not  under- 
stand, first  perplexes,  then  annoys,  and  finally 
antagonizes  him.  It  is  not  true,  as  some  hold, 
that  the  world's  unrest  is  traceable  in  last 
analysis  to  physical  hunger.  Probably  there 
never  were  so  few  hungry  men  as  there  are 
today.  Civilization  may  have  its  faults,  but 
lack  of  ability  to  uplift  the  masses  of  the  pop- 
ulation and  to  offer  them  opportunity  is  not 
one  of  them.  The  world  has  been  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years  under  the  spell  of  ab- 
stract principles,  admirable  in  themselves,  and 
yet  the  world  in  large  measure  lacks  the  abil- 
ity or  the  capacity  so  to  organize  itself  and  its 
business  that  those  principles  shall  find  just 
and  equable  expression.  Everywhere  old  be- 
liefs, old  traditions,  and  old  customs  are  giv- 
ing way  before  the  corroding  tooth  of  time; 
and  as  the  time-honored  creeds,  political,  so- 
cial, and  religious,  lose  their  hold,  others 
equally  controlling  and  imperative  do  not  come 
forward  to  take  their  place.  Immense  masses 
of  men  are  left,  therefore,  with  almost  boundless 
opportunities  for  good  or  evil,  but  without  guid- 
ing principles  with  which  to  work.  This  leads 
to  intellectual,  political,  and  moral  restlessness. 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP  99 

There  are  many  who  feel  that  the  rising  gen- 
eration of  Americans  is  growing  up  without 
any  proper  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  American  institutions  and  American 
government.  Because  of  this  lack  of  knowl- 
edge, well-meaning  men  lend  ear  quite  too 
readily  to  demagogues  who  propose  to  them  all 
sorts  of  schemes  without  any  relation,  save  one 
of  antagonism,  to  established  political  prin- 
ciples. From  listening  to  demagogues,  it  is  but 
a  short  and  easy  step  to  a  state  of  mind  in 
which  envy,  greed,  and  hate  are  elevated  to 
the  lofty  place  which  should  be  occupied  by 
respect  and  confidence,  as  well  as  by  political 
insight,  political  knowledge,  and  political  ex- 
perience. The  Americans  of  an  earlier  day  got 
their  training  in  the  fundamental  principles  of 
citizenship  from  the  stern  facts  which  faced 
them.  This  was  the  school  in  which  the  na- 
tion's fathers  were  educated.  During  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  task  of 
nation-building  went  on  apace,  and  the  discus- 
sion of  fundamental  principles  was  always  go- 
ing on  in  the  Congress  as  well  as  before  the 
people.  Then  came  the  great  clash  of  arms  in 
civil  war,  and  principles  were  yet  turned  to  for 


ioo         THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

guidance  and  direction.  Men  sought  even  to 
stay  and  to  turn  back  the  tide  of  battle  with 
the  force  of  logic. 

Today,  however,  one  hears  much  less  of 
these  fundamental  principles.  There  are  those 
among  us,  some  of  them  in  places  of  responsi- 
bility and  great  influence,  who  call  these  prin- 
ciples out-worn,  antiquated,  obstacles  to  popular 
government,  and  who  would  substitute  the  pass- 
ing desire  of  today  for  the  carefully  wrought  de- 
sign of  all  time.  Men  now  talk  with  straight 
faces  of  substituting  rude  and  primitive  jus- 
tice for  the  orderly  procedure  of  law,  apparently 
with  no  recognition  of  the  fact  that  this  sub- 
stitution means  to  plunge  man  and  his  highest 
interests  back  into  barbarism,  and  to  reestab- 
lish the  time  when  might  made  right.  The 
courts  are  attacked  as  usurpers  of  an  author- 
ity which  the  people  themselves  have  given 
them  for  the  people's  own  protection.  The 
carefully  built  guards  which  have  been  put 
about  individual  rights  and  liberties  are  de- 
nounced as  fortresses  of  privilege  by  those  who 
seek  privileges  for  themselves  at  the  expense 
of  the  rights  of  others. 

There  are  only  two  really  deep-seated  and 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          101 

influential  enemies  of  human  happiness  and 
human  order,  ignorance  and  selfishness.  These 
do  pretty  much  all  the  damage  that  is  done  in 
the  world,  and  they  are  the  always  present 
obstacles  to  improving  the  condition  of  man- 
kind. It  is  the  province  of  intellectual  edu- 
cation to  address  itself  to  the  first  of  these, 
and  it  is  the  task  of  moral  education  to  deal 
with  the  other.  If  men's  eyes  could  only  be 
really  opened  to  an  understanding  of  how  the 
civilization  of  the  world  has  been  won;  if  they 
could  be  brought  to  see  the  significance  of 
each  step,  taken  however  long  ago,  on  the  up- 
ward path  of  man's  development;  if  they  could 
recognize  that  the  perplexities  of  today  are  due 
chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  to  lack  of  adjustment 
between  the  ruling  principles  which  are  at  work 
in  human  life  and  the  circumstances  of  the  mo- 
ment, and  not  to  the  imperfection  or  unwis- 
dom of  those  principles,  they  would  be  able  to 
pass  juster  and  wiser  judgments  upon  the  ques- 
tions submitted  for  arbitrament  to  them  as 
citizens.  If  men  could  only  be  led  to  appreciate 
the  distinction  between  selfishness  and  self- 
hood; to  see  the  richness  and  fulness  of  nature 
which  come  from  service;  and  to  realize  that 


102          THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

the  highest  expression  and  the  greatest  con- 
quest which  a  human  personality  can  attain  is 
through  finding  its  ideals  and  its  satisfactions 
in  promoting  the  happiness  and  the  interests  of 
its  kind,  the  task  of  government  would  be 
easy  indeed. 

In  all  parts  of  the  world  there  are  those  who 
feel  this  so  strongly  that,  in  order  to  gain  what 
seems  to  them  to  be  a  desirable  end  for  the 
whole  body  politic,  they  would  strike  at  the 
roots  of  human  individuality  and  deprive  it  of 
the  favoring  soil  in  which  alone  it  can  grow. 
If  they  were  to  succeed  in  this  endeavor,  they 
would  not  mend  matters  at  all.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  would  make  them  worse.  It  is  not 
less  individuality  that  we  need,  but  fewer  self- 
centered  individuals.  It  is  not  less  private 
property  that  we  need,  but  private  property 
more  widely  distributed  and  fewer  men  who 
treat  their  hoards  as  misers  rather  than  as 
trustees.  Human  individuality  and  personal- 
ity will  blossom  anew  and  more  richly  if  planted 
in  the  garden  of  service. 

If  one,  seeking  to  know  the  story  of  civiliza- 
tion, casts  his  eye  back  over  the  pages  of  re- 
corded history,  he  will  find  that  the  record  of 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          103 

progress  can  be  written  in  a  single  sentence. 
It  is  the  development  of  liberty  under  law. 
Liberty  and  law  are  the  two  words  upon  whose 
true  and  faithful  exposition  all  training  for  cit- 
izenship must  rest.  He  who  truly  understands 
the  meaning  of  liberty  and  the  meaning  of 
law,  and  the  relation  of  one  to  the  other,  is 
ready  to  face  his  full  duty  as  an  American 
citizen. 

It  is  a  sorry  travesty  upon  the  serious  busi- 
ness of  training  for  citizenship,  that  it  should 
be  thought  that  we  can  make  citizens  by 
teaching  the  external  facts  relating  to  the 
machinery  of  government  alone.  A  knowledge 
of  the  way  government  works  in  this  and  other 
lands  is  highly  important  and  of  course  help- 
ful. But  this  knowledge  may  be  minute  and 
complete  and  yet  be  unaccompanied  with  any 
real  grip  on  the  principles  that  vitalize  free 
government  everywhere. 

An  admirable  book  for  training  in  the  funda- 
mentals of  citizenship  could  be  written  in  three 
parts:  the  first  to  deal  with,  to  describe,  and 
to  illustrate  the  conception  of  Liberty;  the 
second,  to  deal  with,  to  describe,  and  to  illus- 
trate the  conception  of  Law;  and  the  third, 


104         THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

to  outline  in  simple  fashion  the  agencies  which 
the  American  people  have  created  in  order 
that  Liberty  and  Law  may  strengthen  each 
other. 

Liberty  is  the  freedom  from  all  restraints 
but  those  which  the  lawful  rights  of  others 
impose.  Liberty,  therefore,  attaches  to  man 
as  a  social  and  political  animal.  It  relates  to 
his  conduct  and  opportunities  as  a  member  of 
a  body  politic.  Liberty  contradicts  and  de- 
nies license  just  as  completely  as  it  contradicts 
and  denies  tyranny.  To  escape  from  restraints 
other  than  those  imposed  by  the  lawful  rights 
of  others,  men  have  made  every  conceivable 
sacrifice.  To  be  permitted  to  hold  opinions  of 
one's  own  choosing,  to  pursue  the  calling  of 
one's  own  preference,  to  move  about  as  in- 
clination and  opportunity  may  lead,  to  retain 
as  one's  own  possession  the  rewards  of  one's 
labor  and  skill,  are  inseparable  from  liberty. 
The  free  man,  therefore,  lives  surrounded  by 
both  opportunities  and  limitations.  The  op- 
portunities are  an  invitation  to  the  exercise  of 
his  own  capacities;  the  limitations  are  the  just 
opportunities  and  privileges  of  others.  It  is 
one  of  the  paradoxes  and  marvels  of  human 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          105 

nature  that  man  grows  in  power  and  in  grace 
as  he  lives  and  works  with  others  who  have  the 
same  privileges  and  opportunities  as  himself. 
As  he  rises  superior  to  these  limitations  and 
through  sacrifice  overcomes  them  and  turns 
them  into  elements  of  strength  and  power  for 
himself,  he  grows  in  individuality  and  in  use- 
fulness as  a  citizen. 

It  is  law  which  imposes  the  limitations  that 
are  characteristic  of  liberty.  Law  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  system  or  collection  of 
principles  and  rules  of  human  government  in 
their  application  to  property  and  conduct, 
which  are  enforced  by  a  sovereign  political 
authority.  Laws  themselves  change,  but  the 
principles  underlying  the  existence  of  law  do 
not,  and  cannot  change,  unless  society  and 
civilization  are  to  be  destroyed.  They  are  the 
long  and  painful  product  of  evolution  opera- 
ting in  the  field  of  human  conduct  and  human 
affairs.  The  really  intelligent  man  regards  the 
tried  and  tested  products  of  time  with  high 
respect;  the  anarchist  would  destroy  them  at 
one  blow  for  the  pleasure  of  returning  to  chaos. 
It  is  of  high  importance  to  teach  that  law  is 
not  caprice,  that  it  is  not  tyranny,  that  it  is 


106         THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

not  limited  in  its  application.  It  is  the  sov- 
ereign people  themselves  who  speak  by  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  law,  and  the  institutions 
and  agencies  which  have  been  created  for  the 
exposition  and  enforcement  of  law  are  the 
people's  own  institutions  and  agencies.  It  is 
a  noteworthy  and  singular  characteristic  of  our 
American  government  that  the  Constitution 
provides  a  means  for  protecting  individual  lib- 
erty from  invasion  by  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment itself,  as  well  as  from  invasion  by  others 
more  powerful  and  less  scrupulous  than  our- 
selves. The  principles  underlying  our  civil  and 
political  liberty  are  indelibly  written  into  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  the  na- 
tion's courts  are  instituted  for  their  protection. 
We  Americans  are  thus  in  possession  of  an  ap- 
paratus unlike  anything  which  exists  elsewhere 
in  the  world  to  protect  the  principles  of  liberty, 
and  it  is  to  this  more  than  to  any  other  single 
cause  that  we  owe  the  stupendous  strides  of 
the  past  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years. 

An  intelligent  citizenship,  which  is  also  good 
citizenship,  implies,  however,  much  more  than 
a  knowledge  of  fundamental  principles,  indis- 
pensable as  that  knowledge  is.  Good  citizen- 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          107 

ship  implies  a  habit  of  will  by  which  the  indi- 
vidual instinctively  conforms  his  action  in  con- 
crete cases  to  the  abstract  principles  in  which 
he  professes  belief.  It  is  curious  how  many 
men  feel  that  the  rule  of  sound  principle  is 
excellent  for  the  conduct  of  others,  but  that 
it  should  be  suspended  or  at  least  relaxed  in 
their  own  case  when  some  material  advantage 
is  to  be  had.  It  is  a  long  time  since  clever 
men  first  began  to  devise  ways  and  means  of 
making  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason, 
and  human  ingenuity  has  not  yet  exhausted 
itself  by  any  means.  Madame  Roland's  heart- 
breaking cry  from  the  scaffold  "O!  Liberty, 
how  many  crimes  are  committed  in  thy  name," 
is  still  ringing  in  the  world's  ears.  We  must 
be  careful,  then,  not  to  confuse  the  names 
Liberty  and  Law  with  the  facts.  We  must  not 
permit  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  appearances, 
but  rather  insist  upon  digging  down  to  the 
bed-rock  of  underlying  principle  in  order  to 
determine  our  attitude  toward  a  specific  po- 
litical or  social  problem. 

It  is  curious,  too,  how  ready  men  are  to 
condemn  in  their  contemporaries  the  quali- 
ties which  they  profess  most  to  admire  in 


io8          THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

their  ancestors.  What  was  the  determined  pur- 
pose of  long  ago  becomes  narrow-mindedness 
and  stubbornness  when  exhibited  today.  The 
lofty  idealism  of  some  great  prophet  of  the 
race  which  has  been  celebrated  in  song  and 
story  for  centuries,  is  termed  the  vagary  of  a 
dreamer  and  the  outgiving  of  an  unpractical 
mind,  when  we  find  it  looking  us  in  the  face. 
This  power  of  self-deception  keeps  many  of  the 
worst  citizens  from  realizing  that  they  fall 
short  of  perfection  in  any  degree.  They  go 
through  all  the  forms  and  recite  all  the  formulas 
of  the  creed  of  respectability  and  of  duty. 
They  dole  out  a  little  something  to  charity 
now  and  then,  with  quite  the  air  of  a  martyr 
going  to  the  stake  for  his  beliefs.  What  more 
can  be  asked  of  them?  The  answer  is  instant 
and  imperative:  Make  some  show  of  genuine 
human  feeling.  Give  some  expression  of  hon- 
est human  sympathy.  Offer  some  real  sacri- 
fice for  the  common  interest  and  the  common 
good.  Dwell  upon  something  other  than  one's 
own  physical  comfort  and  material  welfare, 
and  heartily  lend  a  hand  to  the  huge  task  of 
making  more  human  beings  intelligent,  prop- 
erty-holding, and  free  from  the  harassing  and 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          109 

in  large  part  unnecessary  cares  which  now  tor- 
ment them.  If  the  decent  men  and  women 
of  America  would  begin  tomorrow  to  do  the 
things  which  their  private  beliefs  and  their 
public  professions  require,  the  sum-total  of  the 
world's  comfort  and  happiness  would  be  mar- 
velously  increased  before  sunset.  It  cannot 
too  often  be  repeated  that  the  problem  of 
human  betterment  is  not  a  problem  of  revolu- 
tion. It  is  not  a  problem  whose  solution  in- 
volves cutting  loose  from  all  that  has  gone 
before,  or  one  which  compels  radical  readjust- 
ment of  accustomed  legislation.  It  is  simply 
and  solely  a  matter  of  individual  self-better- 
ment. Individual  men  and  women  are  not 
going  to  be  made  over  by  the  spread  of  some 
philosophy  as  to  how  under  other  auspices  or 
in  other  worlds  than  ours  the  race  might  have 
been  happier  and  more  comfortable.  Society 
as  a  whole  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
sum-total  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it. 
It  has  no  separate  metaphysical  entity,  nor  is 
it  some  strange  and  alien  thing  of  which  in- 
dividual citizens  know  nothing  and  form  no 
part.  Individual  men  and  women  are  society. 
They  are  the  state.  To  it  their  highest  alle- 


no         THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

giance  is  due.  No  church,  no  party,  no  union, 
no  lodge,  may  interpose  its  interest  or  its  ties 
between  the  state  and  the  highest  duty  of  the 
citizen  with  impunity,  or  without  tending  to 
overthrow  the  social  order  and  to  substitute 
the  hatefulness  of  class-feeling  for  the  glory  of 
patriotism.  If  men's  standards  of  action  be 
raised,  if  their  citizenship  be  real,  sincere,  and 
vital,  then  society  is  already  reformed.  Noth- 
ing else  remains  to  be  done. 

In  one  of  his  well-known  essays,  Macaulay 
makes  the  statement  that  no  compositions 
have  ever  been  produced  in  the  world  that  are 
equally  perfect  in  their  kind  with  the  great 
Athenian  orations.  He  adds  the  striking  sug- 
gestion that  genius  is  subject  to  the  same  laws 
which  regulate  the  production  of  cotton  and 
molasses.  The  supply  adjusts  itself  to  the  de- 
mand. The  quantity  may  be  diminished  by  re- 
strictions and  multiplied  by  bounties.  To  the 
influence  which  oratory  exerted  at  Athens, 
Macaulay  attributes  the  singular  excellence  to 
which  eloquence  attained  there.  Why  should 
not  good  citizenship  rise  to  heights  here  in 
America  equal  to  those  which  oratory  and  elo- 
quence occupied  at  Athens?  Macaulay  may 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          in 

be  right.  Let  us  put  a  bounty  on  good  citi- 
zenship by  giving  to  it  great  influence;  by 
rendering  it  high  honor;  and  by  holding  it  in 
incomparable  esteem.  Let  these  standards  be 
set  early  in  the  home  and  in  the  school.  Teach 
young  children  who  the  real  heroes  of  our  Re- 
public are.  Show  them  with  clear  illumina- 
tion the  underlying  principles  on  which  the 
nation  is  built,  and  tell  the  story  of  how  man- 
kind discovered  those  principles  and  wrought 
them  into  political  institutions.  Do  not  per- 
mit the  problems  of  today  to  become  separated 
from  the  problems  and  principles  of  yesterday. 
Make  it  plain  that  the  story  of  our  political 
evolution  is  continuous  and  that  what  exists 
and  perplexes  now  is  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary product  of  all  that  has  gone  before,  and 
will,  in  turn,  condition  and  determine  what  is 
to  follow  after.  Before  all  else,  keep  the  in- 
spiring maxim,  Liberty  under  law,  before  every 
American  child,  and  as  he  grows  in  power  of 
appreciation  see  that  he  understands  what  it 
means  and  involves. 

The  Institutes  of  Justinian,  which  have 
shaped  the  law  of  Europe  for  nearly  fifteen 
hundred  years,  open  in  sonorous  Latin  with 


ii2          THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP 

the  sentence  which  rendered  into  our  tongue 
reads,  "Justice  is  the  constant  and  perpetual 
wish  to  render  every  one  his  due."  Justice, 
then,  is  a  habit  of  will;  a  habit  of  will  not  on 
the  part  of  an  individual  sovereign,  or  of  a 
high  officer  sitting  in  state,  but  a  habit  of  will 
on  the  part  of  every  individual  who  claims 
and  receives  the  rights  and  privileges  of  a  cit- 
izen. The  will  to  render  every  one  his  due 
means  that  the  rich,  the  powerful,  and  the 
successful  are  to  have  their  due  accorded  to 
them  without  grudging  and  without  envy,  just 
as  the  poor,  the  unimportant,  and  the  strug- 
gling are  to  have  their  due  in  fullest  measure 
without  oppression  or  exploitation.  It  is  easy 
to  be  just  when  it  costs  nothing.  The  test  of 
one's  essential  justice  of  mind  and  will  comes 
when  personal  interest,  personal  prejudice,  or 
personal  passion  stands  in  the  way  of  its  ex- 
ercise. The  perpetuation  of  democracy  de- 
pends upon  the  existence  in  the  people  of  that 
habit  of  will  which  is  justice.  Liberty  under 
law  is  the  process  for  attaining  justice  which 
has  thus  far  been  most  successful  among  civil- 
ized men.  The  call  to  citizenship  is  a  call  to 
the  exercise  of  liberty  under  law;  a  call  to  the 


THE  CALL  TO  CITIZENSHIP          113 

limitation  of  liberty  by  law;  and  a  call  to  the 
pursuit  of  justice,  not  only  for  one's  self,  but 
for  others. 

For  inspiration  to  an  understanding  of  Amer- 
ican citizenship  let  teacher  and  student  alike 
turn  to  the  great  oration  of  Daniel  Webster 
delivered  at  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  on  De- 
cember 22,  1820,  to  commemorate  the  first 
settlement  of  New  England.  The  reader  who 
follows  this  remarkable  exposition  of  the  mean- 
ing of  republican  institutions  as  Americans  had 
framed  them,  will  understand  the  feeling  of 
John  Adams  when  he  wrote:  "This  oration 
will  be  read  five  hundred  years  hence  with  as 
much  rapture  as  it  was  heard.  It  ought  to  be 
read  at  the  end  of  every  century,  and  indeed 
at  the  end  of  every  year,  for  ever  and  ever." 

Those  glowing  words  are  the  judgment  of 
one  of  the  nation's  fathers  upon  the  meaning 
of  the  call  to  American  citizenship.  What  is 
to  be  the  judgment  of  those  who  are  now  the 
nation's  children? 


V 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 


An  address  at  the  unveiling  of  the  statue  of  Alexander  Hamilton 
in  the  city  of  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  May  30,  1907 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

The  large  cities  of  the  world  are  to  be  found 
where  they  are  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons. 
We  learn  from  historians  and  geographers 
what  those  reasons  are.  They  tell  us  that  in 
the  ancient  world  and  in  the  modern  world 
alike,  men  first  gathered  themselves  together 
in  communities  at  points  where  protection  and 
self-defense  were  easy,  or  where  commerce  and 
industry  were  likely  to  develop  with  least  ob- 
stacle or  interference.  A  high  hill  or  rock  sur- 
mounted by  a  castle,  about  the  walls  of  which 
the  dependents  of  the  feudal  lord  might  gather, 
explains  the  existence  of  many  a  European 
town  today.  The  mouths  of  navigable  rivers, 
the  proximity  of  sources  of  natural  wealth,  or 
convenient  centers  for  distribution  of  supplies 
to  more  sparsely  settled  sections  of  the  land, 
account  for  still  other  cities  and  towns.  Occa- 
sionally we  find  that  the  site  of  a  city  has  been 
deliberately  chosen  in  order  that  a  definite 
public  policy  may  be  carried  out  thereby. 
117 


n8  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

Such  a  city,  the  manner  of  the  choosing  of  its 
site,  and  the  purposes  of  those  who  were  chiefly 
concerned  in  the  choosing,  become  matters  of 
unusual  interest  to  the  reader  of  history. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  at  least  two 
city  sites  which  were  deliberately  chosen  in 
pursuance  of  certain  public  ends.  Both  were 
chosen,  or  their  choosing  was  made  possible, 
by  one  and  the  same  man.  Both  were  chosen 
as  part  of  one  and  the  same  policy — the  build- 
ing of  the  American  people  into  a  strong  na- 
tion which  should  be  both  politically  and  in- 
dustrially independent.  These  two  city  sites 
are  that  of  Washington,  selected  to  be  the  po- 
litical capital  of  the  new  nation,  and  that  of 
Paterson,  selected  to  be  its  industrial  capital. 
The  man  behind  the  choice  in  each  case  was 
he  whose  name  and  fame  we  are  gathered  to 
honor — Alexander  Hamilton.  It  is  worth  while 
to  dwell  for  a  few  moments  upon  the  man  and 
the  policies  which  called  Paterson  into  exist- 
ence. 

It  was  a  part  of  Alexander  Hamilton's  states- 
manship that  the  capital  city  of  the  new  na- 
tion was  Washington  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac.  To  secure  the  assumption  by  the 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  119 

national  government  of  the  war  debt  of  the 
separate  states,  and  so  to  hold  the  infant  com- 
monwealths together  in  a  new  and  stout  bond, 
he  allowed  the  capital  city  to  be  fixed  at  the 
spot  where  the  local  pride  of  some  of  his  chief 
opponents  desired  it  to  be.  It  was  equally  a 
part  of  Hamilton's  statesmanship  that  the  city 
of  Paterson  was  called  into  being  on  the  banks 
of  the  Passaic.  The  same  engineer  who  laid 
out  the  political  capital  drew  the  original  plans 
for  the  industrial  capital.  Those  plans,  un- 
fortunately, demanded  the  resources  of  a  prin- 
cipality for  their  execution,  and  they  came  to 
naught.  Had  they  been  carried  out,  Colt's 
Hill  yonder,  now  leveled  to  the  ground,  would 
have  been,  as  Capitol  Hill  is  in  Washington, 
the  center  from  which  great  avenues  radiated 
through  the  industrial  city  of  L'Enfant's  im- 
agination. Six  miles  square  the  city  was  to 
be,  and  the  new  world  was  to  assert  itself  in 
industry,  as  in  politics,  from  a  capital  seat. 
The  plan  was  as  striking  as  it  was  novel,  and 
worthy  of  the  political  genius  who  conceived  it. 
Why  was  Alexander  Hamilton  interested  in 
building  an  industrial  capital  for  the  new  na- 
tion, and  in  selecting  its  site? 


120  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  encyclo- 
pedic character  of  Hamilton's  interests  and  in 
the  broad  sweep  of  his  statesmanship.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  outlying  parts  of  the 
world  were  looked  upon  by  the  older  and  con- 
trolling nations  not  only  as  political  depend- 
encies, but  as  industrial  annexes.  They  were 
to  grow  and  provide  the  raw  materials  of  com- 
merce and  industry,  which  raw  materials, 
whether  dug  from  the  ground  or  grown  in  the 
earth,  were  to  be  shipped  to  the  motherland 
for  manufacture,  and  shipped  back  again  to 
the  dependencies  for  purchase  and  consump- 
tion as  finished  products.  Hamilton  knew 
perfectly  well  that  the  independence  of  the 
United  States  was  only  partially  achieved  when 
the  political  shackles  which  bound  the  colonists 
to  King  George  were  broken.  He  knew  that 
the  people  must  be  industrially  independent  as 
well,  if  their  nation  was  to  endure.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  factory  and  the  farm,  the  mine 
and  the  workshop,  should  be  brought  side  by 
side,  that  through  a  diversity  of  employment 
and  an  economy  of  transportation  charge,  the 
economic  prosperity  of  the  people  might  be 
assured  and  advanced. 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  121 

As  soon  as  Hamilton  had  secured  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  and  even  before  he 
had,  under  the  Constitution,  riveted  the  bonds 
which  held  the  states  together  by  having  the 
nation  assume  the  separate  state  debts,  he  set 
about  the  task  of  building  up  diversified  domes- 
tic industries. 

On  January  15,  1790,  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives called  upon  Hamilton,  then  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  for  a  report  upon  the 
subject  of  manufactures,  to  deal  particularly 
with  the  means  of  promoting  those  manufac- 
tures that  would  tend  to  render  the  United 
States  independent  of  foreign  nations  for  mili- 
tary and  other  essential  supplies.  On  Decem- 
ber 5,  1791,  at  the  age  of  thirty-four,  Hamil- 
ton responded  to  this  request  with  a  report 
which  is  both  an  economic  and  a  political 
classic.  Not  only  does  he  consider  and  pass 
in  review  the  arguments  advanced  for  and 
against  the  policy  of  building  up  domestic  man- 
ufactures, if  necessary  by  government  aid,  but 
he  tells  the  House  of  Representatives  pre- 
cisely what  manufactures  had  already  been 
undertaken  in  the  United  States  and  what 
measure  of  success  might  be  expected  to  at- 


122  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

tend  them.  In  the  course  of  this  remarkable 
report,  Hamilton  announced  that  a  society  was 
forming,  with  a  sufficient  capital,  which  was 
to  prosecute,  on  a  large  scale,  the  making  and 
printing  of  cotton  goods.  The  society  to  which 
Hamilton  referred  was  the  Society  for  Estab- 
lishing Useful  Manufactures,  which  Society  had 
been  already  constituted  a  body  politic  and 
corporate  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of 
New  Jersey  in  an  Act  passed  November  22, 
1791,  or  only  a  few  days  earlier  than  the  date 
of  Hamilton's  report  on  manufactures.  The 
Act  relating  to  this  Society  provided  in  its 
twenty-sixth  section  that,  since  it  was  deemed 
important  to  the  success  of  the  undertaking, 
provision  should  be  made  for  incorporating, 
with  the  consent  of  the  inhabitants,  such  dis- 
trict, not  exceeding  six  miles  square,  as  might 
become  the  principal  city  of  the  intended  es- 
tablishment, which  district  should,  when  cer- 
tain conditions  were  complied  with,  be  the 
town  of  Paterson. 

Therefore,  it  may  with  justice  be  said  that 
the  town  of  Paterson  was  called  into  existence 
by  Alexander  Hamilton  in  pursuance  of  his 
policy  of  securing  industrial  independence  for 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  123 

the  people  of  the  United  States.  Though  his 
immediate  plans  were  never  carried  out,  yet 
cotton,  flax,  and  silk,  iron  and  steel,  copper 
and  brass,  have  since  his  day  given  employ- 
ment here  to  tens  of  thousands  of  intelligent 
workmen.  Hamilton's  policy  succeeded  be- 
yond the  wildest  dreams  of  his  imagination. 
Not  one  industrial  capital,  but  hundreds,  have 
sprung  into  existence  to  demonstrate  its  wis- 
dom and  effectiveness.  From  the  looms  of 
the  Merrimac  to  those  of  the  Piedmont,  from 
the  forges  and  furnaces  of  Pittsburgh  to  those 
of  Colorado  and  beyond,  scores  of  busy  hives 
of  industry  bear  tribute  to  the  greatness  of 
the  man  whose  conscious  purpose  it  was  to 
make  our  nation  strong  enough  to  rule  itself 
and  strong  enough  to  face  the  world  with  hon- 
est pride  in  its  own  strength. 

When,  because  of  the  water  power  afforded 
by  the  great  falls  of  the  Passaic,  the  Society 
for  Establishing  Useful  Manufactures  chose 
this  spot  as  its  site,  it  was  a  part  of  the  town- 
ship of  Acquackanonk,  and  but  an  insignifi- 
cant handful  of  people  were  living  here.  The 
records  say  that  the  total  number  of  houses 
was  not  over  ten.  Out  of  these  small  begin- 


124  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

nings  the  present  busy  city  has  grown.  Ham- 
ilton's interest  in  it  was  personal  and  very 
strong.  The  records  of  the  Society  for  Es- 
tablishing Useful  Manufactures  show  plainly 
enough  that  he  attended  the  early  meetings  of 
the  Directors,  and  make  it  highly  probable 
that  not  only  did  he  draw  the  act  of  incorpo- 
ration itself,  but  guided  the  Society  in  its 
early  policies  as  well.  So  we  commemorate 
today  not  only  a  far-seeing  statesman,  who 
has  forever  associated  his  name  with  this  spot, 
but  a  purpose  which  has  long  since  become 
part  of  the  accepted  policy  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  Because  of  Hamilton's 
conspicuous  public  service,  it  would  be  becom- 
ing for  his  statue  to  stand  in  every  city  in  the 
land;  but  if  there  is  one  city  more  than  an- 
other in  which  it  must  stand,  that  city  is 
Paterson. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  picture  accurately 
the  political  and  social  conditions  which  pre- 
vailed when  the  government  of  the  United 
States  was  created.  Looking  back  as  we  do 
upon  the  achievement  as  one  of  epoch-marking 
significance  in  the  world's  history,  and  seeing 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  125 

as  we  do  the  outlines  of  the  great  figures  who 
participated  in  the  work  silhouetted  against 
the  background  of  the  past,  it  is  difficult  to 
appreciate  against  what  tremendous  obstacles 
they  labored  and  with  what  bitter  antagonisms 
they  were  forced  to  fight.  If  the  history  of 
the  American  Revolution  and  that  of  the  build- 
ing of  the  nation  show  human  nature  at  its 
best,  they  also  show  it  at  its  worst.  Over 
against  a  Franklin,  a  Washington,  and  a  Ham- 
ilton we  must  set  the  scurrilous  pamphleteers, 
the  selfish  particularists,  and  the  narrow- 
minded  politicians  whose  joint  machinations 
it  required  almost  infinite  patience,  infinite 
tact,  and  infinite  wisdom  to  overcome.  The 
greatness  of  Washington  himself,  marvelous  as 
his  achievements  are  now  seen  to  be,  rests  in 
no  small  part  upon  what  he  put  up  with.  A 
nature  less  great  than  his,  a  temper  less  se- 
rene, could  not  have  failed  to  show  resentment 
and  anger  at  a  time  when  either  passion  would 
have  been  dangerous  to  the  cause  in  whose 
service  his  whole  nature  was  enlisted. 

We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  the  political 
controversies  of  our  own  day  as  bitter,  and 
of  the  political  methods  which  accompany 


126  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

them  as  base  and  dishonorable.  The  bitter- 
ness, the  baseness,  and  the  dishonor  of  today 
are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  bitter- 
ness, the  baseness,  and  the  dishonor  with  which 
the  great  fathers  of  the  nation  were  compelled 
to  deal.  Upon  the  devoted  head  of  Washing- 
ton himself  was  heaped  every  sort  and  kind  of 
obloquy.  Hamilton  was  called  alternately  a 
monarchist  and  a  thief,  a  liar,  and  a  traitor. 
Men  stopped  at  nothing  to  gain  their  political 
ends,  and  the  writings  of  not  a  few  of  our 
country's  great  men  abound  in  passages  and 
records  which  bring  the  blush  of  shame  to  the 
cheek. 

This  nation  of  ours  was  not  built  easily  or 
in  a  day.  The  materials  used  in  the  structure 
were  themselves  refractory,  and  the  arduous 
task  of  putting  them  together  was  time-con- 
suming. The  Constitutional  Convention  itself 
was  in  a  sense  a  subterfuge  of  Hamilton's  and 
the  outgrowth  of  a  purely  commercial  confer- 
ence, at  which  the  representatives  of  but  five 
states  were  gathered,  so  difficult  was  it  to 
unite  the  states  for  any  purpose.  The  max- 
ims of  the  French  Revolution  were  in  the  air, 
and  Jefferson  was  playing  with  them,  now  as 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  127 

idols,  now  as  weapons.  Men  were  swept  off 
their  feet  by  the  power  of  formulas  and  phrases, 
and  hard,  clear  thinking  on  the  fundamental 
principles  of  politics  and  government  was  by 
no  means  so  common  as  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  supposing  it  was. 

To  understand  the  history  of  the  United 
States,  we  must  realize  that  the  nation  has 
had  two  births:  the  first,  its  birth  to  union 
under  Washington  and  Hamilton;  the  second, 
its  birth  to  liberty  under  Lincoln.  Our  na- 
tion was  not  really  made  until  the  second 
birth  was  an  accomplished  fact.  It  is  as  ab- 
surd to  speak  of  the  United  States  as  being 
the  creation  of  the  year  1776  or  1789  as  it  would 
be  to  speak  of  England  as  the  creation  of  the 
year  in  which  Hengist  and  Horsa  first  landed 
on  its  eastern  coast.  The  birth  throes  of  the 
United  States  of  America  began  on  the  day 
when 

"The  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

They  only  ended  when  two  brave  Americans, 
whose  consciences  had  brought  them  to  place 
different  and  antagonistic  meanings  upon  the 


i28  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

structure  of  the  government,  met  face  to  face  at 
Appomattox  to  "beat  their  swords  into  plow- 
shares, and  their  spears  into  pruning-hooks." 

In  the  long  and  difficult  process  of  nation- 
building,  five  great  builders  stand  out  above 
all  others  by  reason  of  the  supreme  service 
that  they  rendered.  Their  places  in  the  Amer- 
ican pantheon  are  secure.  Two  were  from 
Virginia,  one  from  New  York,  one  from  New 
England,  and  one  from  the  West.  The  five 
are  Washington,  Hamilton,  Marshall,  Webster, 
and  Lincoln.  The  placid  and  almost  super- 
human genius  of  Washington,  exhibited  alike 
in  war  and  in  peace,  made  the  beginnings  pos- 
sible. The  constructive  statesmanship,  the 
tireless  energy,  and  the  persuasive  eloquence 
of  Hamilton  laid  the  foundations  and  pointed 
the  way.  The  judicial  expositions  of  Marshall 
erected  the  legal  superstructure.  The  power- 
ful and  illuminating  arguments  of  Webster  in- 
structed public  opinion  and  prepared  it  to 
stand  the  terrible  strain  soon  to  be  put  upon 
it  in  the  struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
union.  The  human  insight,  the  skill,  and  the 
infinite,  sad  patience  of  Lincoln  carried  the 
work  to  its  end. 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  129 

Others  have  served  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  and  served  them  well.  Others  have 
been  great  party  leaders,  admirable  judges, 
far-sighted  statesmen;  but  to  these  five — 
Washington,  Hamilton,  Marshall,  Webster, 
and  Lincoln — must  be  accorded  the  first  and 
foremost  place.  To  them,  more  than  to 
any  others,  we  owe  the  United  States  as  we 
know  it. 

Of  these  five  nation-builders,  Hamilton  was 
in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable.  Tal- 
leyrand, no  mean  judge,  placed  him  on  a  par 
with  the  greatest  European  statesmen  of  his 
time,  including  even  Pitt  and  Fox — a  judgment 
more  obviously  moderate  now  than  when  it 
was  made.  Hamilton's  genius  was  not  only 
amazingly  precocious,  but  it  was  really  genius. 
His  first  report  on  the  public  credit  and  his 
report  on  manufactures,  two  of  the  greatest 
state  papers  in  the  English  language,  were  the 
work  of  a  young  man  of  but  thirty-three  or 
thirty-four.  The  political  pamphlets  of  his 
boyhood,  the  military  papers  and  reports  of 
his  youth,  would  do  credit  to  experienced  age. 
In  his  forty-seven  years,  Hamilton  lived  the 
life  of  generations  of  ordinary  men.  From  the 


130  t  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

restless  boyhood  years  on  the  distant  island  in 
the  Caribbean  Sea  through  the  stirring  scenes 
of  his  student  days  in  Columbia  College;  from 
the  worried  camp  of  Washington  where,  the 
merest  stripling,  he  was  clothed  with  heavy 
military  responsibility,  to  his  years  of  active 
practice  in  the  courts,  instructing  the  judges 
and  illuminating  the  law;  from  the  arduous 
work  in  the  Constitutional  Convention,  a  states- 
man trying  to  piece  a  nation  together  out  of 
fragments,  to  his  ceaseless  labors  with  voice 
and  pen  to  persuade  a  reluctant  people  to  ac- 
cept the  new  government  as  their  own;  into 
the  Cabinet  as  its  presiding  genius  and  to  the 
busy  Treasury  where  everything  had  to  be 
created  from  an  audit  system  and  a  mint  to 
a  nation's  income;  back  into  private  life  in 
name  but  in  fact  to  the  exercise  of  new  power; 
all  the  way  on  to  the  fatal  field  at  Weehawken, 
where,  in  obedience  to  a  false  and  futile  sense 
of  honor,  he  gave  up  his  life  to  the  bullet  of  a 
political  adversary,  the  story  of  Hamilton's  life 
is  full  of  dramatic  interest  and  intensity.  He 
represented  the  highest  type  of  human  prod- 
uct, a  great  intellect  driven  for  high  purposes 
by  an  imperious  will.  Facts,  not  phrases,  were 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  131 

his  counters;  principle,  not  expediency,  was 
his  guide. 

In  all  his  career,  Hamilton  seems  to  have 
yielded  but  once  to  the  temptation  to  use  a 
local  or  a  party  interest,  and  then  he  made 
use  of  the  local  or  party  interest  of  his  oppo- 
nents. That  was  when  he  yielded  to  the  senti- 
ment to  place  the  capital  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac,  in  order  to  gain  the  votes  needed  to 
pass  his  Assumption  bill.  On  no  other  occa- 
sion, whether  when  exerting  his  powers  of  per- 
suasion to  the  utmost  in  the  face  of  an  ad- 
verse majority  in  the  New  York  Convention 
called  to  consider  the  ratification  of  the  Consti- 
tution, or  in  his  extraordinary  appeals  through 
the  Federalist,  or  in  the  letters  of  Camillus 
written  in  defense  of  the  Jay  treaty,  did  he  ever 
descend  from  the  lofty  heights  of  political  prin- 
ciple. That  is  the  reason  why  Hamilton's  re- 
ports, his  letters,  and  his  speeches  belong  to 
the  permanent  literature  of  political  science. 
The  occasion  for  which  he  wrote  was  of  the 
moment,  but  the  mood  in  which  he  wrote  and 
his  method  belong  to  the  ages. 

Hamilton's  policy  had  three  ends  in  view. 
He  wished  to  develop  a  financial  policy  that 


132  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

would  bind  the  Union  hard  and  fast;  an  in- 
dustrial policy  that  would  make  it  rich,  and, 
within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  self-sufficient; 
and  a  foreign  policy  that  would  strengthen  the 
political  and  economic  independence  already 
provided  for.  He  accomplished  them  all,  and 
all  three  are  securely  part  of  the  permanent 
policy  of  the  nation.  Hamilton's  statesman- 
ship could  have  no  higher  tribute  than  this. 
He  built  not  for  the  day,  but  for  the  nation's 
history. 

The  little  lion,  as  his  friends  affectionately 
called  him,  proved  his  greatness  in  yet  an- 
other way.  He  put  aside  the  acclaim  and  ap- 
plause of  his  contemporaries  that  he  might 
serve  their  children  and  their  children's  chil- 
dren, by  laying  broad  and  deep  and  strong  the 
foundations  of  one  of  the  great  nations  of  the 
world.  It  would  have  been  easy  for  Hamilton 
with  his  personal  charm,  his  alertness  of  mind, 
and  his  geniality  of  temper,  to  have  been  the 
idol  of  the  populace  of  his  time.  But  he  was 
wise  enough  to  know  how  cheap  and  tawdry  a 
thing  popularity  is  when  principle  and  lasting 
usefulness  have  to  be  surrendered  in  return  for 
it.  Today  Hamilton  has  his  reward.  By  com- 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  133 

mon  consent  he  is  now  recognized  not  only  as 
one  of  the  very  greatest  of  all  Americans,  but 
as  a  statesman  whom  the  whole  world  is  glad 
to  honor  for  the  political  insight  and  sagacity 
that  he  displayed,  for  the  marvelous  range  of 
his  intellectual  interests,  for  the  philosophic 
structure  of  his  mind,  and  for  the  imperish- 
able service  that  he  rendered  to  the  cause  of 
popular  government  everywhere. 

To  an  old  and  valued  friend,  Edward  Car- 
rington  of  Virginia,  Hamilton  wrote  an  impor- 
tant letter  in  1792.  That  letter  states  two  es- 
sential points  of  his  political  creed  to  be,  "first, 
the  necessity  of  Union  to  the  respectability  and 
happiness  of  this  country;  and  second,  the  ne- 
cessity of  an  efficient  general  government  to 
maintain  the  Union."  He  adds:  "I  am  af- 
fectionately attached  to  the  republican  theory. 
I  desire  above  all  things  to  see  the  equality 
of  political  rights,  exclusive  of  all  hereditary 
distinction,  firmly  established  by  a  practical 
demonstration  of  its  being  consistent  with  the 
order  and  happiness  of  society."  The  enemy 
which  he  most  feared  for  his  country  was  the 
spirit  of  faction  and  anarchy.  "If  this  will 
not  permit  the  ends  of  government  to  be  at- 


134  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

tained  under  it,"  he  adds,  "if  it  engenders  dis- 
orders in  the  community,  all  regular  and  or- 
derly minds  will  wish  for  a  change,  and  the 
demagogues  who  have  produced  the  disorder 
will  make  it  for  their  own  aggrandizement. 
This  is  the  old  story.  If  I  were  disposed  to 
promote  monarchy  and  overthrow  state  gov- 
ernments, I  would  mount  the  hobby-horse  of 
popularity;  I  would  cry  out  'usurpation,' 
'danger  to  liberty,'  etc.,  etc.;  I  would  endeavor 
to  prostrate  the  national  government,  raise  a 
ferment,  and  then  'ride  in  the  whirlwind,  and 
direct  the  storm.' ' 

These  words  are  both  prophecy  and  history. 
They  are  a  warning  against  the  demagogue 
from  one  who  was  surrounded  by  them,  little 
and  big.  They  put  us  on  our  guard  against 
the  worst  tendencies  in  others,  as  well  as 
against  the  worst  passions  in  ourselves. 

Hamilton's  achievements  are  beyond  our 
reach,  but  the  lessons  of  his  life  are  not  hard 
for  us  to  learn.  The  never-absent  care  for  the 
public  interest,  the  superb  energy  with  which 
he  pressed  his  policies  upon  the  attention  of 
the  people,  the  unfailing  regard  for  political 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  135 

principle,  the  grasp  of  concrete  facts  of  every 
sort,  the  undaunted  courage  of  the  man,  mark 
Hamilton  as  an  ideal  public  servant  and  pub- 
lic official.  "He  never  lost  sight  of  your  in- 
terests," said  Gouverneur  Morris  in  his  funeral 
oration  to  the  people  who  thronged  about  the 
murdered  leader's  bier.  "Though  he  was  com- 
pelled to  abandon  public  life,"  added  Morris, 
"never,  no,  never  for  a  moment  did  he  aban- 
don the  public  service."  No  higher  praise 
could  be  given  to  a  public  man. 

The  ebb  and  flow  of  the  huge  human  tide 
which  comes  and  goes  at  the  meeting  point  of 
two  of  the  most  crowded  and  busiest  streets  in 
the  world,  surges  daily  past  the  tomb  in  Trin- 
ity churchyard  where  lie  the  ashes  of  the 
statesman,  too  great  to  be  a  successful  party 
leader,  to  whom  the  United  States  of  America 
owe  an  incalculable  debt.  Imagination  tempts 
us  to  wonder  how  much  of  this  great  popula- 
tion and  how  much  of  the  active  business  and 
financial  strength  that  this  human  tide  rep- 
resents, would  be  in  existence  if  Hamilton  had 
not  lived,  or  if  his  policies  had  not  been  accepted 
by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  No  man, 
we  say,  is  indispensable.  In  a  certain  sense 


136  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

this  must  be  true;  for  the  universe  does  not 
hang  on  a  single  personality.  But  is  it  not 
equally  true,  that  great  personalities  do  shape 
the  course  of  events,  and  that  if  there  had 
been  no  Hamilton,  no  Federalist,  and  no  re- 
ports on  the  public  credit  and  on  manufac- 
tures, the  history  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  might  have  been,  indeed  would  cer- 
tainly have  been,  very  different?  That  his- 
tory might  still  have  been  a  proud  one  and 
the  people  themselves  a  great  and  successful 
people;  but  the  nation  as  we  know  and  love 
it,  the  nation  that  stood  the  strain  of  the 
greatest  of  civil  wars,  the  nation  that  has 
stretched  across  mountains  and  prairies  and 
plains  to  the  shores  of  a  second  ocean,  the 
nation  that  has  resisted  every  attempt  to  de- 
base its  currency  and  to  impair  its  credit,  the 
nation  that  is  not  afraid  of  permitting  indivi- 
dual citizens  to  exert  their  powers  to  the  ut- 
most if  only  they  injure  no  one  of  their  fellows, 
— that  is  the  nation  which  Hamilton's  vision 
foresaw  and  for  which  the  labor  of  his  life  was 
given. 


VI 

THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 


A  paper  read  before  the  American  Academy  and  the  National 

Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters,  at  the  New  Theatre, 

New  York,  December  8,  1910 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

SOME    REFLECTIONS    ON    THE    DOCTRINE   OF 
EVOLUTION 

There  are  wars  and  rumors  of  wars  in  a 
portion  of  the  territory  occupied  by  the  doc- 
trine of  organic  evolution.  All  is  not  work- 
ing smoothly  and  well,  and  according  to  for- 
mula. It  begins  to  appear  that  those  men  of 
science  who,  having  derived  the  doctrine  of 
organic  evolution  in  its  modern  form  from  ob- 
servations on  earth-worms,  on  climbing  plants, 
and  on  brightly  colored  birds,  and  who  then 
straightway  applied  it  blithely  to  man  and  his 
affairs,  have  made  enemies  of  no  small  part 
of  the  human  race. 

It  was  all  well  enough  to  treat  some  earth- 
worms, some  climbing  plants,  and  some  brightly 
colored  birds  as  fit,  and  others  as  unfit,  to  sur- 
vive; but  when  this  distinction  is  extended 
over  human  beings,  and  their  economic,  social, 
and  political  affairs,  there  is  a  general  prick- 
139 


140        THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

ing-up  of  ears.  The  consciously  fit  look  down 
on  the  resulting  discussions  with  complacent 
scorn.  The  consciously  unfit  rage  and  roar 
loudly;  while  the  unconsciously  unfit  bestir 
themselves  mightily  to  overturn  the  whole 
theory  upon  which  the  distinction  between 
fitness  and  unfitness  rests.  If  any  law  of  na- 
ture makes  so  absurd  a  distinction  as  that, 
then  the  offending  and  obnoxious  law  must  be 
repealed,  and  that  quickly. 

The  trouble  appears  to  arise  primarily  from 
the  fact  that  man  does  not  like  what  may  be 
termed  his  evolutionary  poor  relations.  He  is 
willing  enough  to  read  about  earth-worms,  and 
climbing  plants,  and  brightly  colored  birds,  but 
he  does  not  want  nature  to  be  making  leaps 
from  any  of  these  to  him. 

The  earth-worm,  which,  not  being  adapted 
to  its  surroundings,  soon  dies,  unhonored  and 
unsung,  passes  peacefully  out  of  life  without 
either  a  coroner's  inquest,  an  indictment  for 
earth-worm  slaughter,  a  legislative  proposal  for 
the  future  protection  of  earth-worms,  or  even 
a  new  society  for  the  reform  of  the  social  and 
economic  state  of  the  earth-worms  that  are 
left.  Even  the  quasi-intelligent  climbing  plant 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT        141 

and  the  brightly  colored  bird,  humanly  vain, 
find  an  equally  inconspicuous  fate  awaiting 
them.  This  is  the  way  nature  operates  when 
unimpeded  or  unchallenged  by  the  powerful 
manifestations  of  human  revolt  or  human  re- 
venge. Of  course,  if  man  understood  the  place 
assigned  to  him  in  nature  by  the  doctrine  of 
organic  evolution  as  well  as  the  earth-worm, 
the  climbing  plant,  and  the  brightly  colored 
bird  understand  theirs,  he,  too,  like  them, 
would  submit  to  nature's  processes  and  de- 
crees without  a  protest.  As  a  matter  of  logic, 
no  doubt  he  ought  to  do  so;  but,  after  all 
these  centuries,  it  is  still  a  far  cry  from  logic 
to  life. 

In  fact,  man,  unless  he  is  consciously  and 
admittedly  fit,  revolts  against  the  implication 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  and  objects  both 
to  being  considered  unfit  to  survive  and  suc- 
ceed, and  to  being  forced  to  accept  the  only 
fate  which  nature  offers  to  those  who  are  unfit 
for  survival  and  success.  Indeed,  he  manifests 
with  amazing  pertinacity  what  Schopenhauer 
used  to  call  "the  will  to  live";  and  considera- 
tions and  arguments  based  on  adaptability  to 
environment  have  no  weight  with  him.  So 


142        THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

much  the  worse  for  environment,  he  cries;  and 
straightway  sets  out  to  prove  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  humans  who  are 
classed  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  fit,  ex- 
hibit a  most  disconcerting  satisfaction  with 
things  as  they  are.  The  fit  make  no  conscious 
struggle  for  existence.  They  do  not  have  to. 
Being  fit,  they  survive  ipso  facto.  Thus  does 
the  doctrine  of  evolution,  like  a  playful  kitten, 
merrily  pursue  its  tail  with  rapturous  delight. 
The  fit  survive;  those  survive  who  are  fit. 
Nothing  could  be  more  simple. 

Those  who  are  not  adapted  to  the  conditions 
that  surround  them,  however,  rebel  against  the 
fate  of  the  earth-worm  and  the  climbing  plant 
and  the  brightly  colored  bird,  and  engage  in  a 
conscious  struggle  for  existence  and  for  suc- 
cess in  that  existence  despite  their  inappro- 
priate environment.  Statutes  can  be  repealed 
or  amended;  why  not  laws  of  nature  as  well? 
Those  human  beings  who  are  unfit  have,  it 
must  be  admitted,  one  great,  though  perhaps 
temporary,  advantage  over  the  laws  of  nature; 
for  the  laws  of  nature  have  not  yet  been  granted 
suffrage  and  the  organized  unfit  can  always 
lead  a  large  majority  to  the  polls.  So  soon  as 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT        143 

knowledge  of  this  fact  becomes  common  prop- 
erty, the  laws  of  nature  will  have  a  bad  quarter 
of  an  hour  in  more  countries  than  one. 

The  revolt  of  the  unfit  primarily  takes  the 
form  of  attempts  to  lessen  and  to  limit  com- 
petition, which  is  instinctively  felt,  and  with 
reason,  to  be  part  of  the  struggle  for  existence 
and  for  success.  The  inequalities  which  na- 
ture makes,  and  without  which  the  process  of 
evolution  could  not  go  on,  the  unfit  propose 
to  smooth  away  and  to  wipe  out  by  that  magic 
fiat  of  collective  human  will  called  legislation. 
The  great  struggle  between  the  gods  of  Olym- 
pus and  the  Titans,  which  the  ancient  sculp- 
tors so  loved  to  picture,  was  child's  play  com- 
pared with  the  struggle  between  the  laws  of 
nature  and  the  laws  of  man  which  the  civilized 
world  is  apparently  soon  to  be  invited  to  wit- 
ness. This  struggle  will  bear  a  little  examina- 
tion, and  it  may  be  that  the  laws  of  nature,  as 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  conceives  and  states 
them,  will  not  have  everything  their  own  way. 

Professor  Huxley,  whose  orthodoxy  as  an 
evolutionist  will  hardly  be  questioned,  made  a 
suggestion  of  this  kind  in  his  Romanes  lecture 
as  long  ago  as  1893.  He  called  attention  then 


144        THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

to  the  fact  that  there  is  a  fallacy  in  the  notion 
that  because,  on  the  whole,  animals  and  plants 
have  advanced  in  perfection  of  organization  by 
means  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  con- 
sequent survival  of  the  fittest,  therefore,  men 
as  social  and  ethical  beings  must  depend  upon 
the  same  process  to  help  them  to  perfection. 
As  Professor  Huxley  suggests,  this  fallacy 
doubtless  has  its  origin  in  the  ambiguity  of 
the  phrase  "survival  of  the  fittest."  One 
jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  fittest  means 
best;  whereas,  of  course,  it  has  in  it  no  moral 
element  whatever.  The  doctrine  of  evolution 
uses  the  term  fitness  in  a  hard  and  stern  sense. 
Nothing  more  is  meant  by  it  than  a  measure 
of  adaptation  to  surrounding  conditions.  Into 
this  conception  of  fitness  there  enters  no  ele- 
ment of  beauty,  no  element  of  morality,  no 
element  of  progress  toward  an  ideal.  Fitness  is 
a  cold  fact  ascertainable  with  almost  mathe- 
matical certainty. 

We  now  begin  to  catch  sight  of  the  real  sig- 
nificance of  this  struggle  between  the  laws  of 
nature  and  the  laws  of  man.  From  one  point 
of  view  the  struggle  is  hopeless  from  the  start; 
from  another  it  is  full  of  promise.  If  it  be 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT        145 

true  that  man  really  proposes  to  halt  the  laws 
of  nature  by  his  legislation,  then  the  struggle 
is  hopeless.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time  when 
the  laws  of  nature  will  have  their  way.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  struggle  between  the  laws 
of  nature  and  the  laws  of  man  is  in  reality  a 
mock  struggle,  and  the  supposed  combat  merely 
an  exhibition  of  evolutionary  boxing,  then  we 
may  find  a  clue  to  what  is  really  going  on. 

It  might  be  worth  while,  for  example,  to 
follow  up  the  suggestion  that  in  looking  back 
over  the  whole  series  of  products  of  organic 
evolution,  the  real  successes  and  permanences 
of  life  are  to  be  found  among  those  species 
that  have  been  able  to  institute  something  like 
what  we  call  a  social  system.  Wherever  an 
individual  insists  upon  treating  himself  as  an 
end  in  himself,  and  all  other  individuals  as  his 
actual  or  potential  competitors  or  enemies, 
then  the  fate  of  the  earth-worm,  the  climbing 
plant,  and  the  brightly  colored  bird  is  sure  to 
be  his;  for  he  has  brought  himself  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  one  of  nature's  laws,  and  sooner 
or  later  he  must  succumb  to  that  law  of  nature, 
and  in  the  struggle  for  existence  his  place  will 
be  marked  out  for  him  by  it  with  unerring 


146        THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

precision.  If,  however,  he  has  developed  so 
far  as  to  have  risen  to  the  lofty  height  of  human 
sympathy,  and  thereby  has  learned  to  tran- 
scend his  individuality  and  to  make  himself  a 
member  of  a  larger  whole,  he  may  then  save 
himself  from  the  extinction  which  follows  in- 
evitably upon  proved  unfitness  in  the  individ- 
ual struggle  for  existence. 

So  soon  as  the  individual  has  something  to 
give,  there  will  be  those  who  have  something 
to  give  to  him,  and  he  elevates  himself  above 
this  relentless  law  with  its  inexorable  punish- 
ments for  the  unfit.  At  that  point,  when  in- 
dividuals begin  to  give  each  to  the  other,  then 
their  mutual  cooperation  and  interdependence 
build  human  society,  and  participation  in  that 
society  changes  the  whole  character  of  the 
human  struggle.  Nevertheless,  large  numbers 
of  human  beings  carry  with  them  into  social 
and  political  relations  the  traditions  and  in- 
stincts of  the  old  individualistic  struggle  for 
existence,  with  the  laws  of  organic  evolution 
pointing  grimly  to  their  several  destinies. 
These  are  not  able  to  realize  that  moral  ele- 
ments, and  what  we  call  progress  toward  an 
end  or  ideal,  are  not  found  under  the  operation 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT        147 

of  the  law  of  natural  selection,  but  have  to  be 
discovered  elsewhere  and  added  to  it.  Beauty, 
morality,  progress  have  other  lurking-places 
than  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  they 
have  for  their  sponsors  other  laws  than  that  of 
natural  selection.  You  will  read  the  pages  of 
Darwin  and  of  Herbert  Spencer  in  vain  for 
any  indication  of  how  the  Parthenon  was  pro- 
duced, how  the  Sistine  Madonna,  how  the 
Ninth  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  how  the  Di- 
vine comedy  or  Hamlet  or  Faust.  There  are 
many  mysteries  left  in  the  world,  thank  God, 
and  these  are  some  of  them. 

The  escape  of  genius  from  the  cloud-covered 
mountain  tops  of  the  unknown  into  human  so- 
ciety, has  not  yet  been  accounted  for.  Even 
Rousseau  made  a  mistake.  When  he  was 
writing  the  Contrat  social  it  is  recorded  that 
his  attention  was  favorably  attracted  by  the 
island  of  Corsica.  He,  being  engaged  in  the 
process  of  finding  out  how  to  repeal  the  laws 
of  man  by  the  laws  of  nature,  spoke  of  Corsica 
as  the  one  country  in  Europe  that  seemed  to 
him  capable  of  legislation.  This  led  him  to 
add:  "I  have  a  presentiment  that  some  day 
this  little  island  will  astonish  Europe."  It 


i48        THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

was  not  long  before  Corsica  did  astonish  Eu- 
rope, but  not  by  any  capacity  for  legislation. 
As  some  clever  person  has  said,  it  let  loose 
Napoleon.  We  know  nothing  more  of  the  ori- 
gin and  advent  of  genius  than  that. 

Perhaps  we  should  comprehend  these  things 
better  were  it  not  for  the  persistence  of 
the  superstition  that  human  beings  habitually 
think.  There  is  no  more  persistent  supersti- 
tion than  this.  Linnaeus  helped  it  on  to  an 
undeserved  permanence  when  he  devised  the 
name  Homo  sapiens  for  the  highest  species  of 
the  order  primates.  That  was  the  quintes- 
sence of  complimentary  nomenclature.  Of 
course,  human  beings  as  such  do  not  think. 
A  real  thinker  is  one  of  the  rarest  things  in 
nature.  He  comes  only  at  long  intervals  in 
human  history,  and  when  he  does  come  he  is 
often  astonishingly  unwelcome.  Indeed,  he  is 
sometimes  speedily  sent  the  way  of  the  unfit 
and  unprotesting  earth-worm.  Emerson  un- 
derstood this,  as  he  understood  so  many  other 
of  the  deep  things  of  life.  For  he  wrote: 
"Beware  when  the  great  God  lets  loose  a 
thinker  on  this  planet.  Then  all  things  are 
at  risk." 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT        149 

The  plain  fact  is  that  man  is  not  ruled  by 
thinking.  When  man  thinks  he  thinks,  he  usu- 
ally merely  feels;  and  his  instincts  and  feelings 
are  powerful  precisely  in  proportion  as  they 
are  irrational.  Reason  reveals  the  other  side, 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  other  side  is  fatal  to 
the  driving  power  of  a  prejudice.  Prejudices 
have  their  important  uses,  but  it  is  well  to  try 
not  to  mix  them  up  with  principles. 

The  underlying  principle  in  the  widespread 
and  ominous  revolt  of  the  unfit  is  that  moral 
considerations  must  outweigh  the  mere  blind 
struggle  for  existence  in  human  affairs.  It  is 
to  this  fact  that  we  must  hold  fast  if  we  would 
understand  the  world  of  today,  and  still  more 
the  world  of  tomorrow.  The  purpose  of  the 
revolt  of  the  unfit  is  to  substitute  interde- 
pendence on  a  higher  plane,  for  the  struggle 
for  existence  on  a  lower  one.  Who  dares  at- 
tempt to  picture  what  will  happen  if  this  re- 
volt shall  not  succeed? 

These  are  problems  full  of  fascination.  In 
one  form  or  another  they  will  persist  as  long 
as  humanity  itself.  There  is  only  one  way  of 
getting  rid  of  them,  and  that  is  so  charmingly 
and  wittily  pointed  out  by  Robert  Louis  Ste- 


150        THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  UNFIT 

venson  in  his  fable,  "The  four  reformers,"  that 
I  want  to  quote  it: 

"Four  reformers  met  under  a  bramble  bush. 
They  were  all  agreed  the  world  must  be 
changed.  'We  must  abolish  property,'  said 
one. 

"We  must  abolish  marriage,'  said  the  second. 

"We  must  abolish  God,'  said  the  third. 

"I  wish  we  could  abolish  work,'  said  the 
fourth. 

"Do  not  let  us  get  beyond  practical  poli- 
tics,' said  the  first.  'The  first  thing  is  to  re- 
duce men  to  a  common  level.' 

"The  first  thing,'  said  the  second,  'is  to 
give  freedom  to  the  sexes.' 

"The  first  thing,'  said  the  third,  'is  to  find 
out  how  to  do  it.' 

"The  first  step/  said  the  first,  'is  to  abol- 
ish the  Bible.' 

"The  first  thing/  said  the  second,  'is  to 
abolish  the  laws.' 

"The  first  thing/  said  the  third,  'is  to  abol- 
ish mankind/" 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acton,  Lord,  on  the  referendum,  33 

Adams,  John,  on  Webster's  Plym- 
outh oration,  113 

Alcibiades  recalled,  46 

Amoeba,  From  age  of  mammal 
back  to,  not  progress,  14-15 

Anarchy  will  follow  the  sweeping 
away  of  fundamental  guaran- 
tees, 29 

Anglo-Saxon  institutions,  in  dan- 
ger from  socialistic  democracy, 
5,  60-6 1 ;  failure  to  solve  prob- 
lems of  to-day  might  destroy,  96 

Antinomies,  Political,  confronting 
us,  95-96 

Arab  migration  along  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  into  Spain,  48 

Aristotle,  on  resemblance  of  de- 
mocracy to  tyranny,  29;  on  the 
Constitution  of  Athens,  45 

Assemblages,  tumultuous,  Daniel 
Webster  on,  40 

Assumption  bill,  The,  118-19,  131 

Athenian  orations,  Macaulay  on 
the,  no 

Athens,  The  recall  tried  to  the  full 
at,  45-46 

Banking  and  currency,  The  prob- 
lem of,  63-66;  Hamilton's  finan- 
cial policies,  63-64;  the  Mone- 
tary Commission,  65 

Barto  w.  Himrod,  N.  Y.  State 
Court  of  Appeals,  34-36 

Betterment,  human,  The  problem 
of,  109 

Bounty,  A,  for  good  citizenship, 
HI 

British  Constitution,  Fundamental 
guarantees  of,  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  majority,  29 

Burke,  Edmund,  on  the  real  duty 
of  a  representative,  10-20 

BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS,  53-74: 
Balance  between  principle  and 


policy,  53;  enlightened  public 
opinion,  54;  foundation  of  the 
government,  54-55;  develop- 
ment of  the  nation,  55;  eco- 
nomic questions  to  be  adjusted, 
56;  choice  of  three  policies,  56- 
57;  laissez  faire,  56,  57-58;  so- 
cialism, 57, 58-61;  the  collective 
hand,  57,  61^-62;  the  commu- 
nity and  the  individual,  58;  in- 
dividual and  corporate  over- 
sight and  control,  61-62;  three 
concrete  problems  of,  63,  72-73; 
banking  and  currency,  63-66; 
transportation  systems,  63,  66- 
69;  trusts,  63,  69-72;  study  of 
the  facts  and  the  public  interest, 
72-73;  John  Jay  and  his  great 
Treaty,  73-74-  See  also  Politics 
and  Business. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  on  government 
by  the  uncontrolled  majority, 
30;  endorsed  Hamilton's  finan- 
cial policies,  64 

California,  Referendum  in,  on 
twenty-three  amendments  to 
state  constitution,  36-38;  vote 
in,  relating  to  women's  suffrage, 
38;  carried  by  a  small  minority 
of  voting  population,  38;  the.re- 
call  in,  39 

Camillus,  Letters  of,  131 

Campaign,  The,  of  1895-96,  84-85 

Carrington,  Edward,  Hamilton's 
letter  to,  133-34 

Charges  against  the  representative 
republic,  11-12 

Charlemagne,  Rise  and  fall  of  the 
great  empire  of,  48 

CITIZENSHIP,  THE  CALL  TO,  95- 
113;  The  end  of  instruction,  95; 
political  antinomies  confronting 
us,  95-96;  principles  to  be  pro- 
tected and  problems  to  be  solved. 


IS3 


154 


INDEX 


06-97;  task  of  preparing  Amer- 
icans for  intelligent,  97;  world- 
unrest  due  to  ignorance,  97-98; 
rising  Americans  ignorant  of 
fundamental  principles,  99-100; 
ignorance  and  selfishness,  101-2; 
a  book  on  the  fundamentals  of 
Liberty  and  Law,  103-4;  Lib- 
erty, 104;  Law,  105-6;  the 
habit  of  will,  107;  power  of  self- 
deception,  108;  the  problem  of 
human  betterment,  109;  the  in- 
dividual and  the  state,  109-10; 
oratory  at  Athens,  110;  high 
standards  of,  in;  justice  an  in- 
dividual habit  of  will,  112; 
Webster's  Plymouth  oration  an 
inspiration  to,  113 

Civil  War,  The  American,  3-4 

Civil  war,  An  industrial,  78-79 

Civilization,  Ability  of,  to  uplift 
the  masses,  98 

Civilization,  western,  Basal  prin- 
ciple of,  60-61 

Cleveland,  Grover,  would  have 
been  recalled  in  1893,  44 

Collective  ownership.  See  Social- 
ism 

Combinations  in  restraint  of  trade, 
70 

Commissions,  Governmental,  must 
not  be  substituted  for  Boards  of 
Directors,  68-69 

Community,  Partnership  between 
the  individual  and  the,  58 

Competition  and  co-operation,  72, 
81-82,  83 

Conditions,  Political  and  social, 
when  government  of  U.  S.  was 
created,  124-27 

Congress  to  be  reached  and  con- 
vinced, 86 

Constitution,  the  American,  Wide 
knowledge  displayed  by  makers 
of,  6-7 ;  strength  and  vitality  of, 
15-16;  fundamental  guarantees 
of,  beyond  the  reach  of  any 
majority,  29;  task  of  the  found- 
ers of,  54-55;  principles  of  civil 
and  political  liberty  in,  106; 
Hamilton's  efforts  for,  121 


Constitution  of  A  thens,  by  Aristotle, 
45 

Constitutional  Convention,  The, 
126,  130 

Constitutions,  state,  Sound  prin- 
ciples of  making,  departed  from, 
15,  18;  proper  contents  of,  16-18 

Controversies,  Bitter  political, 
125-26 

Cooperation  has  displaced  com- 
petition, 81-82;  manifest  in  the 
limited  liability  corporation, 
82-83 

Co-partnerships,  Opposition  to, 
in  England,  88 

Corporation,  The  limited  liability, 
82-83 

Court  of  Appeals  of  New  York 
State  on  the  referendum,  34-36 

Courts,  The,  attacked,  100 

Debs,  Eugene  V.,  on  the  recall  of 
judges  in  California,  42-43 

Delinquency,  Moral,  of  individ- 
uals, 83-84 

Demagogues,  Influence  of,  due  to 
ignorance,  09-100 

Democracy,  A,  and  a  Republic,  de- 
fined by  Madison,  6;  Aristotle 
on  resemblance  between  tyranny 
and  a,  29 

Democracy,  Athenian,  tried  the  re- 
call to  the  full,  46 

Democracy,  Perpetuation  of,  112 

Democratic  government,  An  un- 
fortunate characteristic  of,  53- 
54 

Earth,  Vision  of  the  history  of  our, 

48-49 
Economic  abuse  a  cause  of  trouble, 

83 

Economic  forces  of  the  body  poli- 
tic, Government  at  war  with, 

78-79 
Economic  laws  fundamental  and 

vital,    91;     not   controlled   by 

human  statutes,  92 
Economic  questions  to  be  settled, 

56,8o 


INDEX 


Education,  intellectual,  Province 
of,  101 

Education,  moral,  Province  of,  too 

Educational  instrumentalities, 
Task  before  our,  97 

Elections,  Not  more,  but  fewer, 
wanted,  47 

Emerson  on  the  thinker,  148 

England,  one  of  the  two  sources  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty,  8-9; 
developed  representative  insti- 
tutions, 9;  light,  inspiration, 
and  guidance  from,  40 

Enlightenment  and  education, 
Need  of  a  campaign  of,  84 

Europe,  Modern  nations  of,  taking 
beginning,  48;  hand  of  absolut- 
ism laid  upon  all  the,  49 

Evolution  is  progress  through  dif- 
ferentiation, 12-13,  I4~i5i  81; 
some  reflections  on  the  doctrine 
of,  139-50;  man  objects  to,  141- 
43;  Huxley  on  "survival  of  the 
fittest,"  143-44;  no  moral  ele- 
ments in,  146-48 

Federalist,  Madison  in  the,  on  a 
Republic,  6;  Hamilton  in,  131, 
136 

Fit,  The,  and  the  unfit,  141-44 

Fitness,  No  moral  element  in,  144 

Florence,  History  of,  known  to 
makers  of  the  Constitution,  7 

Forms  of  government,  Genesis  and 
development  of,  7-8 

Four  reformers,  Stevenson's  fable 
of  the,  150 

Fundamental  principles  of  our 
institutions  and  government, 
Weakening  of  the,  15-18,  18-19, 
27-29;  laid  by  the  founders,  54- 
55;  development  of,  60-6 1;  to 
be  preserved  and  protected,  96- 
97;  ignorance  of,  99-100;  book 
for  training  in,  103-4;  instruc- 
tion in,  needed,  in;  laid  by 
Washington,  Hamilton,  and 
Marshall,  128 

Genesis  of  government,  7-0 
Genius  not  yet  accounted  for,  147 


Government,  History  of,  unknown 
to  the  advocates  of  revolutionary 
changes,  46-47 

GOVERNMENT,  OUR  FORM  OF,  WHY 

SHOULD  WE   CHANGE,   3-50:  Tke 

American  Civil  War,  3-4;  pres- 
ent attempt  to  change,  to  a  so- 
cialistic democracy,  4-5,  9-10; 
failure  of  representative,  pro- 
claimed, 5 ;  Madison's  definition 
of  a  Republic,  6;  making  of 
the  American  Constitution,  6-7; 
genesis  of,  7-9;  the  principle 
of  representative  institutions 
worked  out,  9;  a  social  democ- 
racy means  a  revolution,  10-11; 
charges  against,  11-12;  move- 
ment against,  reactionary,  12-15 
weakening  of  state  constitutions 
by  insertion  of  minor  details,  15- 
18;  reduction  of  representatives 
to  position  of  instructed  dele- 
gates, 18-20;  limitations  ad- 
mitted, need  fundamental  prin- 
ciples be  destroyed?  21-22;  the 
Town  Meeting  in  New  England 
and  in  Chicago,  22-23;  evils  of 
the  initiative,  23-27;  funda- 
mental guarantees  questioned 
and  doubted,  27-28;  majority 
may  have  the  power  but  has  not 
the  right  to  destroy,  29;  Aristotle 
on  democracy  and  tyranny,  29- 
31;  John  C.  Calhoun  on  uncon- 
trolled numerical  majority,  30; 
a  socialistic  democracy  means 
the  extinction  of  liberty,  30;  the 
referendum  and  the  executive 
veto,  31-32;  contemplates  de- 
cision without  discussion,  33; 
New  York  State  Court  of  Ap- 
peals on,  34-36;  the  referendum 
in  California,  36-38;  changes 
effected  by  a  minority  vote,  38- 
39;  the  recall,  39-40;  of  the  ju- 
diciary an  outrage,  40-43;  Eu- 
gene V.  Debs  on,  42-43;  what 
would  have  happened  in  the  past, 
44-45 ;  the  recall  in  Athens,  45- 
46;  ignorance  of  the  revolution- 
ists, 46-47;  path  of  true  political 


156 


INDEX 


progress,  47;  summary  of  his- 
tory, 48-49;  growth  of  funda- 
mental principles  of,  49;  devel- 
opment, not  change  of,  50;  task 
of  the  founders,  54-55 

Greece,  History  of,  known  to 
makers  of  the  Constitution,  7; 
the  glory  that  was,  48 

Guarantees,  Fundamental,  of  civil 
and  political  liberty,  questioned 
and  doubted,  27-28;  may  major- 
ity sweep  away,  28-29;  to  be 
treated  as  mere  legislation, 
30-36 

Habit  of  will,  The,  to  conform  ac- 
tion to  principles,  107 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  Financial 
policies  of,  63-64;  and  the  Jay 
Treaty,  74 

HAMILTON,  ALEXANDER,  117-36; 
Planner  of  cities,  117-18;  Wash- 
ington and  Paterson,  118-19; 
statesmanship  of,  118-20;  in- 
dustrial independence,  120, 122- 
23;  report  on  manufactures, 
121-22;  Society  for  Establishing 
Useful  Manufactures,  122-24; 
obstacles  and  political  contro- 
versies, 125-27;  the  nation's  two 
births,  127;  five  nation-builders, 
128-29;  genius  of,  129-31; 
yielded  to  opponents  but  once, 
131;  three  ends  in  view,  131-32; 
the  little  lion  put  aside  popu- 
larity, 132-33;  letter  to  Carring- 
ton,  133-34;  achievements  of, 
134-35;  the  nation  he  foresaw 
and  lived  for,  136 

Holland,  one  of  two  sources  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  8-9;  light, 
inspiration;and  guidancefrom,49 

Homo  sapiens,  The,  of  Linnaeus, 
148 

Hunger  not  cause  of  the  world's 
unrest,  98 

Huxley  on  "survival  of  the  fittest," 
143-44 

Ignorance  and  selfishness  the  ene- 
mies of  happiness  and  order. 
101-2 


Individual,  the,  Suppression  of ,  31; 
partnership  of,  with  the  commu- 
nity, 58;  right  of,  at  base  of  rep- 
resentative democracy,  60;  re- 
lation of,  to  society,  145-46 

Individual  men  and  women  are  the 
state,  109-10 

Individual  rights,  The  guards 
about,  denounced,  100 

Individual  self -betterment,  human 
betterment,  109 

Individuality,  Human,  should  be 
conserved,  102 

Industrial  civil  war,  An,  78-79 

Industrial  independence,  Hamil- 
ton's plans  for  national,  118, 

II9-;24 

Initiative  at  disposition  of  a  very 
small  fraction  of  the  electorate, 
23-25;  preposterous  and  vicious, 
25;  heaviest  blow  at  represent- 
ative institutions,  25-27 

Instruction,  Citizenship  the  end  of, 
95;  in  fundamental  principles 
of  government  needed,  90-100, 
111-12;  in  the  evolution  of  civil- 
ization, 101-3 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission, 
The,  66H58 

Iran,  Civilized  peoples  ruling  the 
plains  of,  48 

Issues  rarely  settled  by  elections, 
54 

Jackson  and  Benton  destroyed 
second  bank  of  the  United 
States,  63 

Jay,  John,  and  his  great  Treaty, 
73-74,  131 

Judges,  servants  of  the  law  not  of 
the  people,  40;  tyranny  of  the 
crown  over,  in  England,  41; 
Eugene  V.  Debs  on  the  recall  of, 
in  California,  42-43;  relation  of, 
to  members  of  the  bar,  67 

Justice,  a  habit  of  will,  112-13 

Justinian  on  Justice,  111-12 

Laches  recalled.  46 

Laissez  faire  policy,  The,  56,  57-58 


INDEX 


157 


Law,  Liberty  and,  103;  defined, 
105-6 

Legislation,  Not  more,  but  infi- 
nitely less  needed,  47 

L'Enfant,  Plans  of,  for  Washing- 
ton and  Paterson,  119 

Liberty,  Development  of,  under 
law,  is  progress,  103-1 1 ;  oppor- 
tunities and  limitations  of,  104- 
5 ;  principles  of  our  civil  and  po- 
litical, in  our  Constitution,  106 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  would  have 
been  recalled  in  1862-63,  44; 
the  noble  appeal  of,  50;  a  na- 
tion-builder, 127,  128-29 

Linnaeus,  "The  Homo  sapiens  of,  148 

Macaulay  on  the  Athenian  ora- 
tions, no 

Madison,  James,  in  Federalist,  on 
a  democracy  and  a  Republic,  6; 
might  have  been  recalled  during 
agitation  about  War  of  1812,  44; 
supported  Hamilton,  64 

Majority,  May  the,  sweep  away  all 
fundamental  guarantees?  28-29; 
right  does  not  go  with  the  power 
of  the,  29 

Man  and  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
139-40,  141-421  148-40 

Manufactures,  Hamilton's  report 
upon,  1 20 

Marshall,  John,  Judicial  genius  of, 
55 ;  opinion  in  case  of  McCulloch 
vs.  Maryland,  64;  a  nation- 
builder,  128-29 

Member  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, A,  is  a  member  of  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States, 
20 

Men,  Public-spirited,  should  be  in- 
duced by  public  acts  and  poli- 
cies to  hold  office,  47-48 

Merchant  companies,.  Attack  on, 
in  Augsburg  Chronicle  in  1512, 
89;  defence  of,  to  Diet  of  Nu- 
remberg in  1522,  89-90 

Migrations  of  people  from  the 
north  and  east  to  south  and 
west,  48 

Monetary  Commission,  The,  65 


Monopolies,  Treatment  of,  70-71; 
investigation  of,  by  Diet  of  Nu- 
remberg in  1522,  89-90 

Moral  considerations  outweigh  the 
blind  struggle  for  existence,  149 

Moral  elements  not  under  law  of 
natural  selection,  146-47 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  on  Hamilton, 
135 

Nation,  Successful  development  of 
the,  55;  two  births  of  the,  127- 
28;  of  Hamilton's  vision,  136 

Nation-builders,  Five  great,  128- 
29 

New  York  Convention,  The,  131 

Nile,  Valley  of,  settled  and  built 
up,  48 

Officers,  A  few  important,  should 
be  chosen  for  long  terms,  and 
held  to  accountability.  47 

Oversight  and  control,  Individual 
and  corporate,  61-62 

Pamphleteers,  Scurrilous,  125 

Paterson,  Choice  of,  as  site  for  in- 
dustrial capital,  118-19,  122-24 

People,  Appeal  to  the,  5 

Pericles  recalled,  45 

Political  institutions,  Questions  of, 
definitely  settled,  55-56 

POLITICS  AND  BUSINESS,  77-92: 
Empty  talk  about,  77;  Southey 
and  the  Quaker,  77;  an  indus- 
trial civil  war,  78-79;  inade- 
quate explanations,  79;  test  of 
institutions  by  social  and  eco- 
nomic conditions,  80;  mistakes 
as  to  the  situation  and  the  rem- 
edy, 80;  competition  displaced 
by  co-operation,  81-82;  the  lim- 
ited liability  corporation,  82-84; 
economic  abuse  in  control  of 
prices  and  by  individual  delin- 
quents, 83-84 ;  enlightenment 
and  education  needed,  84-86; 
Congress  to  be  convinced,  86; 
wide  application  of  the  Sherman 
law,  86-88;  opposition  to  co- 
partnerships in  England,  88;  the 
merchant  companies  of  Ger- 


158 


INDEX 


many  in  1522,  89-90;  economic 
laws  fundamental,  91;  relation 
of,  to  statute-making,  92 

Politics,  our  present-day,  Relations 
of,  to  business,  56,  62-63 

Poor  relations,  Man's  objection  to 
his  evolutionary,  140 

Power,  The,  of  a  majority  does  not 
carry  the  right,  29 

Prejudices  and  principles,  149 

Prices,  Absolute  control  of,  83 

Progress,  The  path  of  true  polit- 
ical, 47-48;  history  of,  as  re- 
corded in  the  institutions  of 
civilized  men,  49;  the  develop- 
ment of  liberty  under  law,  103-6 

Public  opinion  should  be  fixed  on 
questions  of  vital  principle,  47 

Railways,  Blunders  in  legislation 
on,  66-68;  the  Supreme  Court 
on,  68-69 

Recall,  The,  of  legislative  and  exec- 
utive officials  not  a  violation  of 
fundamental  principles,  39;  ap- 
plied to  the  judiciary  an  outrage, 
40-43;  E.  V.  Debs  on  the  recall 
amendment  in  California,  42- 
43;  what  would  have  happened 
had  recall  prevailed  through 
American  history,  44-45;  in 
Athenian  history,  45-46 

Referendum,  The,  urged  in  the 
name  of  progress,  31-36;  quite 
different  from  executive  veto, 
32;  revolution,  33;  Lord  Acton 
on,  33;  the  New  York  Court  of 
Appeals  on,  34-36;  levity  in  use 
of,  in  California,  36 

Representative,  The,  reduced  to 
the  position  of  a  mere  instructed 
delegate,  18-20;  Edmund  Burke 
on  the  real  duty  of  a,  19-20 

Representative  government.  Fail- 
ure of,  claimed,  5,  1 1 ;  principle 
of,  worked  out,  9;  movement 
away  from,  reactionary,  13,  14- 

15 

Representative  institutions,  Fun- 
damental principles  of,  weak- 
ened in  two  ways,  15,  18;  why 


they  grew  up  and  exist,  23;  not 
more  direct  popular  interference 
with,  but  less,  wanted,  47 ;  right 
of  individual  at  base  of,  60;  test 
of  adaptability  of,  to  new  eco- 
nomic conditions,  80;  lack  of 
knowledge  of  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of,  99-100 

Representative  republic,  Move- 
ment to  change  our,  to  a  social- 
istic democracy,  4-5,  10;  built 
by  the  makers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, 7;  charges  against  the,  n- 
12;  need  fundamental  princi- 
ples be  destroyed  to  correct 
shortcomings  of,  2 1 

Republic,  A,  and  a  democracy,  de- 
fined by  Madison,  6 

Revolt  of  the  unfit,  The,  139-50 

Roland's,  Madame,  cry  from  the 
scaffold,  107 

Rome,  History  of,  Known  to 
makers  of  the  Constitution,  7; 
the  world-empire  of,  8;  the 
grandeur  that  was,  48 

Rousseau  on  the  island  of  Corsica, 
147-48 

Schopenhauer's  "the  will  to  live," 

141 

Self-betterment,  human  better- 
ment, 109 

Self-deception,  Power  of,  108 
Selfishness  ajid  self-hood,  101-2 
Service,  The  rewards  of,  101-2 
Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act,  The,  66; 
intent  of  the,  72;  wide  applica- 
tion of,  for  twenty  years,  86-88 
Slavery,  The  problem  of,  55 
Social  system,  The,  in  evolution, 

H5-46 

Socialism,  Beatific  vision  of,  58-59; 
can  not  change  human  nature, 
59;  can  come  only  by  political 
revolution,  60;  no  hope  for 
America  in,  61 

Socialistic  democracy,  Attempt  to 
change  our  republic  into  a,  4-5; 
changes  proposed,  9-10;  can  be 
substituted  only  by  a  revolution, 
10-11,  30-31,  50-60 


INDEX 


159 


Society,  the  individuals  who  com- 
pose it,  log-io 

Southey,  Robert,  and  the  Quaker, 
77 

State  Railway  Commissions,  66-68 

Statute,  Enactment  of  a,  and  mak- 
ing of  a  constitution,  15, 1 6, 17- 
18 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  Fable  of  the 
four  reformers,  150 

Supreme  Court,  U.  S.,  on  railroads, 
68-69 

"  Survival  of  the  fittest,"  Huxley 
on,  143-44 

Thinker,   The,   rarest   of   things 

148-49 

Thucydides  recalled,  46 
Town   Meeting.   Absurdity  of  a 

New  England,  for  Chicago,  22 
Transportation  systems,  Our,  66- 

69 
Trusts,  The,  and  the  highest  public 

interest,  70-72 

Unfit,  The  revolt  of  the,  139-50; 
law  of  nature  obnoxious  to, 
140-42;  attempts  to  lessen  com- 


petition, 143;  no  moral  element 
in  fitness,   144;    the  individual 
and  society,  145-47;    the  idea 
that  human  beings  think,  148- 
49;  purpose  of,  149;  Stevenson's 
"Four  reformers,"  150 
Union,  Hamilton  on,  133-34 
Unrest,  The  world's,  97-98 

Venice,  History  of,  known  to 
makers  of  the  Constitution,  7 

Veto,  the  executive,  Function  of, 
31-32 

Washington,  George,  would  have 
been  recalled  at  time  of  Genet 
episode,  44;  antagonisms  to, 
125-26;  a  nation-builder,  128- 
29 

Washington,  Choice  of  the  site  for, 
118-19,  131 

Webster,  Daniel,  on  tumultuous 
assemblages,  41;  irrefutable  elo- 
quence of,  55;  the  Plymouth 
oration  of,  113;  a  nation-builder, 
128-29 

Weehawken,  Fatal  field  at,  130 

World-unrest,  Causes  of  the,  97-98 


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